Abstract
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the popularity of these apps was growing. A Pew Research Centre study this year showed that around half of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the USA had used dating apps, and that those who were gay were twice as likely to say they’d used them – much higher figures than in Pew’s last study.
Because these apps usually work through geo-navigation – showing who is close by as a central feature – it becomes easier to trace and target people when everyone is confined at home. It was this feature that led to a series of outings in Morocco during April and May.
In Morocco, one of the 70-plus countries where being gay is still illegal, a social media influencer and model Sofia Talouni used quarantine to ask people to join dating sites and out men they might know.
“You might find someone who is 200, 100 metres away. You might even find someone half a metre from you, in your living room or in your bedroom,” said Talouni, urging the outings via her Instagram Live feed.
Up to 100 men in Morocco have since been harassed and abused, with reports that some have been kicked out of their homes. One has taken his own life.
In countries where being gay is either illegal or socially unacceptable, the use of such apps can be a matter of life or death. And these hate crimes appear to be on the rise during the coronavirus restrictions.
South Korea’s LGBTQ community is reporting a spike in homophobic incidents after a cluster of coronavirus cases were connected to clubs frequented by the country’s gay community. Local media called for the identities of all of those who visited the clubs to be revealed at the same time as many reported receiving hate speech on gay dating app Grindr.
Despite South Korea’s outwardly modern image, it remains a deeply traditional society and homophobia is rife, even though same-sex relationships are not illegal.
“Many queer people are afraid that their visit to Itaewon [the area of Seoul where the nightclubs were] will be known… The stigma towards the disease and sexual minority threatens their lives,” said Bak Gi-Jin, a spokesperson from Queer Action against Covid-19 in South Korea.
“Because of patriarchal family culture and institutions, many queer people do not come out until they are completely independent from their parents,” she added. “As outing can be deadly to sexual minorities, most of them hide their sexual identity in their workplace.”
She said one company had even announced on its digital job advert that gay men could not apply.
In Russia, the situation is particularly dire. “Many Russians believe that the virus was spread by the LGBT community or that it was a punishment for their sins,” said Yulia
A man, who lost his job after being arrested for showing affection to a member of the same sex in public, walks with a friend along a train track in Lagos, Nigeria, 14 February 2020
CREDIT: Temilade Adelaja/Reuters
Tsvetkova, a Russian activist who won the 2020 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression arts award.
Tsvetkova isn’t just worried about the present – she’s worried about the future.
“We will soon have a change in the country’s constitution, which will make the situation for the Russian LGBT community even worse, so I am afraid,” she said in reference to Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a constitutional ban on gay marriage (something that should have been voted on in April). This is in a country where the murder of gay people is already neither unusual nor concealed. Last year, for example, LGBTQ activist Yelena Grigoryeva was fatally stabbed in St Petersburg after her name was listed on a website that encouraged people to “hunt” LGBTQ activists.
Tsvetkova receives regular death threats and is currently under house arrest, banned from communicating with anyone except her mother and her lawyer. And while she doesn’t use online apps herself, she is very aware of their dangers.
“I know that sometimes homophobes set up provocations when they meet an LGBT person online and ask for a meeting in person. After that they film the ‘date’ and then blackmail an LGBT person, threatening that otherwise they will tell on [them].”
She said they also often monitored dating apps, outing people on social media.
Index spoke to Samir El Mouti, the director of an NGO that campaigns against violence towards LGBTQ people in Morocco through a Facebook group, The Moroccan LGBT Community. El Mouti is largely forthcoming, partly because he’s now studying for a PhD in Edinburgh and feels reasonably safe, he says. Still, there’s an air of caution during our initial conversation.
“We don’t know if these pages are safe,” he said of the Facebook group when speaking over the phone. “When you are gay in Morocco you learn to not trust each other. Secrecy is in the culture.”
El Mouti says people are cautioned against putting up their real photos. While he is not sure if the government monitors the sites, if anyone is caught on these sites they’re “screwed” because the law discriminates rather than protects people.
In India, similar stories have circulated. Despite a landmark ruling in 2018 legalising gay sex, the LGBTQ community faces regular stigma and violence. And, as in Morocco, those who suffer harassment have very few spaces where they can speak up and out.
Privacy issues and safety concerns have plagued LGBTQ dating apps from the get-go. Grindr, the world’s largest, has gone from scandal to scandal since it was launched in 2009.
In 2016, for example, it faced scrutiny when a Daily Beast reporter used Grindr to uncover how much sexual activity took place in the Olympic Village, exposing the sexual identities of athletes.
In 2018, reports emerged of a security issue that could expose users’ precise locations. That same year, it was revealed that the app had shared data on its users’ HIV status with third parties.
These are just the examples that make headlines. Index has spoken to people from Chile to China and it is always the same story. Yes, people use apps; no, they’re really not secure.
Some believe these dating apps can be a safe haven. “Grindr has been so useful as a way of lessening the loneliness of this moment. Having private spaces are such a luxury. You’re able to be yourself and you’re able to connect,” said Rohit K Dasgupta, an academic who edited the book Queering Digital India: Activisms, Identities, Subjectivities.
But just how prolific are fake accounts?
Catfishing – when someone creates a fictional persona online to lure someone else – is rampant on gay dating apps.
“I have lost count of the amount of times a friend has contacted me to show me a Grindr profile using my photograph that is blatantly not me,” Glaswegian writer Jonathan Morris told Index, also listing examples of men he’s met who used fake online photos.
Posing as someone you’re not might be a way for the less attractive to find a date, but it can also be used as a way to abuse people on these platforms, with some extreme incidents involving violence – sometimes murder.
Aware of both their popularity and their safety issues, app makers have tried to come up with ways to enhance privacy without jeopardising user experience. In many ways they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Some have tried to improve verification measures, such as Hornet, which has 25 million users worldwide.
But going down the “blue tick badge” route offers protection to some users at the expense of others. What if governments or hackers accessed whole databases of sexual minorities?
“Not everyone wants to, or even should, be identified,” said Eric Silverberg, chief executive of dating app Scruff, in an interview with the BBC.
Hinge, for example, now automatically deletes all communications the moment users delete their accounts. Scruff enables users to easily flag offending accounts within the app, and claims to respond to all complaints within 24 hours.
And Grindr – which did not respond to requests to comment from Index – has just launched a new app, Grindr Lite, specifically for people living in countries where being out is difficult.
It features a Discreet App icon, which gives users the ability to disguise the famous logo on their phones as something less conspicuous, as well as a feature to hide their distance from other users. (See also our report in Index 48.03 on Tinder introducing a feature for users to hide their profiles when travelling to countries where homosexuality is criminalised.)
But there is a strong sense that app providers still need to do a lot more, especially right now.
“Some platforms require you to post a face picture with a code (Dudesnude), when you first create a profile to ensure you are legitimate, but that’s not something that has been carried over onto the apps,” said Morris.
This all means that safety is up to the users and society at large.
But el Mouti identifies at least one positive trend. While he has little faith Morocco’s laws will change, he takes comfort in some people becoming more supportive.
“People are starting to realise these are people who have been discriminated against for a long time,” he said. “The mentality is changing.”
CREDIT: nadia_bormotova/iStock
