As protests in Hong Kong enter their seventh week, protest organizers are worried that the police might be infiltrating Telegram groups; instead, they've taken to organizing protests by sending messages over Tinder and Pokemon Go, and by using Apple's ad-hoc, serverless Airdrop protocol. Read the rest
Tinder has been added to the Russian "Register of Information Dissemination Organizations," a regulatory designation that requires companies to turn over user data on request, without a warrant, to Russian law-enforcement and state agencies (America has a similar regime with a few check-and-balance figleafs). Read the rest
Emile Ratelband, a Netherlands media personality and motivational speaker, is 69 years old but believes he has the body of someone 20 years younger. To fix the perceived discrepancy, he has now brought forth a lawsuit to legally change his age. The Dutchman wants to be seen as younger to get better jobs and to have better luck connecting with ladies on Tinder.
He compares his plight with being transgender. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf quotes him as saying, "You can change your name. You can change your gender. Why not your age? Nowhere are you so discriminated against as with your age."
And also, "When I'm 69, I'm limited. When I'm on tinder and it says 69, I don't get an answer. When I'm 49 with the face I have, I'll be in a luxurious position."
The Dutchman describes himself as a "young god."
In four weeks, a local court in Arnhem will make its decision on his case. If the court rules in his favor, the "young god" has said he'll give up his pension.
BBC: Dutchman, 69, brings lawsuit to lower his age 20 years
image via 360Nobs.com Read the rest
Looking incredibly hip and youthful in a bright blue hoodie, comedian Jim Gaffigan had way too much fun swiping right and trolling potential suitors through someone else's Tinder account. Watch in the video as he hijacks the Tinder of Blair, a brave female Vanity Fair staffer. It starts off a little slow but gets much funnier when the guys start responding to Gaffigan's oddball messages.
Gaffigan is starting a worldwide tour on February 8. Read the rest
Judith Duportail got privacy activist Paul-Olivier Dehaye and human rights lawyer Ravi Naik to help her force Tinder to turn over 800 pages of records the company had saved during the four years she'd used the app, and discovered that the company was indefinitely retaining "information such as my Facebook “likes”, my photos from Instagram (even after I deleted the associated account), my education, the age-rank of men I was interested in, how many times I connected, when and where every online conversation with every single one of my matches happened." Read the rest
Lane Loomis posted a scary story about how manners and expectations lead us into danger, especially when one person has all of one and none of the other.
Read the restI walked down to the front door of my building and there was a man there who looked nothing like “Jamie”. The thing about being a woman is that pleasing people is in your blood. From a young age you’re taught that not being liked by a guy is the worst possible thing. No one tells you why this is so bad, or even what would happen that’s so terrible about a guy not liking you. You just have this instinct to do it. It’s hard to go against.
So I saw this guy down there, and I had studied Jamie’s Tinder photos for the last hour since we started talking. I knew it wasn’t the same guy and I was confused about it. But I also didn’t turn around and go lock myself in my apartment. I did the stupid thing. I did the thing that women do and I went down and opened the door and smiled at him.
Brazilian Army Captain Willian Pina Botelho posed as Baltazar "Balta" Nunes in a fake Tinder profile and set out to seduce members of left wing anti-government protest movements in order to infiltrate them. Read the rest
Tinder is for romantic love, not political. TPM reports Tinder has banned two young women using the service to court voters in early primary states. Imagine the disappointment when you find out that 22 year old woman you liked is actually a 74 year old man!
Via TPM:
Read the restTinder locked the two womens' accounts after getting several complaints with men who received messages urging them to support Sanders.
"Do you feel the bern?" Robyn Gedrich wrote in Tinder messages, according to Buzzfeed News. "Please text WORK to 82623 for me. Thanks."
Gedrich, a 23-year-old New Jersey resident, sent messages to 60 people per day, according to Reuters. If people sent a text message to the number she provided, they start receiving updates from the Sanders campaign and a link where they would sign up to volunteer.
"Some people would ask what is this for, and I would kind of explain," she told Reuters. "Some of them would unmatch me or report me as a bot."
Tinder is not happy about an LA billboard campaign urging users of popular dating and hookup apps to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases, for free.
In a provocative LA area billboard campaign, The AIDS Healthcare Foundation takes aim at apps like Tinder and Grindr, and implies that people who use those services to connect with sexual partners are at a higher risk for diseases like chlamydia and gonorrhea.
A KCAL9 LA TV reporter reported that one of the billboards was put up just a few blocks from Tinder’s Beverly Boulevard headquarters.
Tinder sent a cease and desist letter to the AHF, demanding the billboards be taken down and arguing that they "falsely" associate the app "with the contraction of venereal diseases."
In the lawyergram, Tinder attorney Jonathan D. Reichman says the AHF billboard's "accusations are made to irreparably harm Tinder's reputation in an attempt to encourage others to take an HIV test offered by your organization."
Reichman says the campaign's "statements" are not based in science, and would not hold up to "critical analysis."
Tinder "strongly supports such testing," he adds, accusing AHF of false advertising, disparagement, libel and interference with Tinder's business. And them's lawsuitin' words.
The AHF sent out a press release today that links to various studies and an article in Vanity Fair to bolster their dubious claim of “rising STD rates found among users of popular dating or “hookup” mobile phone apps.”
In their announcement, the AHF also detailed the responses by Tinder and Grinder:
Read the restWithin two hours of the billboard posting in Los Angeles (the only market where the boards are currently posted), Grindr, another of the apps highlighted in the campaign, cut off AHF’s paid advertising for its free STD testing services on the site.
Gita Jackson and Maxwell Neely-Cohen apply a traditional video game reviewer's eye to recent years' hottest downloadable sensation. Read the rest
