Women Dating Safety App 'Tea' Breached, Users' IDs Posted to 4chan

This is what happens when you decide to vibecode a service with zero attention to safety or web development. This is why you don't immediately jump onto a new service without it being vetted properly. Now one of the worst communities on the Internet is in possession of over a hundred thousand women's driving licenses and faces. This is going to be an absolute disaster.
- This is ALSO why no service should ever require or get my driver's license information. Fuck that. Also, yet another Constance to those who can't afford a car or want to improve the environment by living car free.
  
  My only exception to that are uber drivers. But then again we live in an age where somehow better help has become popular, even though they sell your data.
  
  Instead, just prove you have a credit card by submitting the details. Also totally safe. Be sure to include the CVV, please!
  
  The only site I ever felt comfortable scanning shit like that into was a site that sold things only to military/medics/fire fighters so I had to upload my medic license and my FF cert.
  Anything beyond that is a no go from me.
- Now now, I like to shit on vibecoders too but let’s not pretend this is some new problem.
  Idiots leave databases on cloud servers exposed all the time rather than deal with their companies often arcane rules for generating certificates
  
  Remember when the government published SSNs in HTML? https://www.zdnet.com/article/missouri-will-not-prosecute-hacker-reporter-for-daring-to-view-state-website-html/
  
  Where do you think the AI learned it?
  Like, I get that competent coders do it too, but now any skiddie with an idea can cosplay as a developer so this is going to be so much more prevelant
- To be fair, I’m not sure why firebase even has a public access option. That’s a recipe for issues.
  Though if it’s anything like Google Cloud Store, they hopefully make it very clear that your bucket is public.
- How is something "vetted properly" and how do I find out about that?
  
  You wait a while until something like this happens.
  
  This is something I worry about all the time as well, especially since I've started to learn how to code and experienced how easy it is to mess up and send a list with all registered users to everyone opening a page. (This was in a test environment.)
  As a user, there is no proper way I know of to verify an app's security. Most apps are closed source, but even if you could view the code, what would you look for?
  Both Apple and Google have a verification process for apps that are published in their app stores, but if these worked, we wouldn't see this happening.
  There are academic researchers working on apps and privacy as well, but it's not like you can ask them for a report on an app you're thinking of installing.
  I think it basically comes down to trust. Check if a developer has messed up in the past and how they dealt with that, that sort of stuff. And for dating apps there is this interesting article: https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/06/24/queer-dating-apps-beware-who-you-trust/#reducing-the-risks-when-using-dating-apps
  It's a long read (haven't fully read it myself yet) and it paints a bleak picture, but that's the world we live in today.
  
  I honestly don't understand what op is talking about.
  Leaks happen all the time, even in billion dollar companies.
  Their comment is the equivalent like, "This is why you should lock your doors!" Like uh okay.
- Anybody oblivious enough to create something like this isn't someone you should trust your most private data with. This service had red flags from the concept phase, never mind the execution.
  This is not to say, of course, that the victims deserved it. It just really sucks that they had to learn this lesson this way.
- "Vibe coded" you just made that up didn't you, because you don't like llms. I don't see anything in the article about "Ai" and this service has been operating for 2 years.
  
  My thoughts as well. But hey, it's lemmy! Just accuse someone of doing something we hate, good to go!
  
  The og 4chan post brought up the vibe coding. Using it as an insult to quality is wider spread than just lemmy.
  
  Maybe I shouldn't have used the term vibe coded. I apologize.

People sign up to app intended to share personal information about others without their permission, end up having their own personal information shared without permission - the irony is impressive.
- At first I was going to call bullshit because I thought you were exaggerating and being ridiculous.
  Nope. That's the app. "Anonymous" sharing of pictures and info of other people. Presumably without their permission. That's fucked up.
  
  Yeah. I mean, I get it. The concept of the app makes sense. And I would be that, on average, it is/would be used for good.
  On the other hand, as a guy, the idea that people are out there sharing reviews of me as a person on the open internet, and I have no way of knowing this, is deeply unsettling. Like, I haven't done anything wrong - just the whole concept feels very gross.
- I think it depends on people's intent and purpose for using this service. I'm overall not a fan of someone taking and sharing pictures of me without my consent, or making claims that can't be defended...
  The group of women legitimately using it for safety is fine, in a general sense.
  The group of women using it as gossip and entertainment is not.
  
  Considering that "tea" is common slang for gossip I'm not convinced there was many of the ~~latter~~ former.
  
  It makes sense using it for safety, but I would worry about whether all the information on there is accurate. Most of the feedback on the app is probably negative, I doubt anyone would really post anything on Tea that's positive about their former partner. But people like to believe they are in the right. Someone who got in a fight with their partner might post something on Tea that isn't accurate, but makes them feel better since they can spin the story how they want, and make the other person at fault. However, unlike regular social media, the person being attacked by their partner on Tea has no idea that it happened, and no way to refute what was said. It promotes the opposite of any type of communication between partners after a fight or breakup. It promotes safety, but at the same time it promotes some toxicity in relationships. What would you think if you knew that if your got into a disagreement with your partner that you could end up posted on this app, without any way of arguing back?

I would not under any circumstances give my drivers license to a for profit app. I don’t even like to give my email.
- apparently there's some law in the UK that mandates it now 🙄
  
  Well UK, have the day you voted for I guess
  
  Thank fuck for VPNs, although it now wants to show me hot milfs in Brussels.
  
  And many republican US states.
  
  Also California

Wow that was fast.
I did not even know this app existed untill about 8 hours ago.
Already comprimised.
EDIT: Also, lol, this arguably is not even largely a hack.
These idiots just had everything stored in a fucking publically accesible firebase bucket... amazing.
They didn't delete anything they claimed to.
Either way you look at it, anywhere on the spectrum from:
A ] A bunch of women reasonably concerned for their safety
B ] A bunch of gossip mongers
... well, they've now all been doxxed, ironic from each angle.
What a fucking disaster.
- if that’s truly how the leak happened then these people, in any reasonable jurisdiction, would be considered criminally negligent, at the least.
  yay compsci ethics courses :D
  boo courts failing to uphold the law >:(
  
  Hooray two tiered legal system, huzzah!
  /s/s/s
- this arguably is not even largely a hack.
  While I agree in principle, I think we should still call it a hack. As in "to gain illegal access to (a computer network, system, etc.)" as Merriam-Webster puts it. It shouldn't be legal to do do this just because the website had horrible (non-existent) security. You shouldn't be allowed to rob a house just because the door wasn't locked.
  
  At which step should it turn illegal? You accessing publicly available website? How exactly are you to know if it is supposed to be public or not, if there is not even an attempt at security?

Not sure if this is ironic that the users are now less safe after using the safety app. But I still feel bad for the users. Dating is hard enough without the fear of being harmed.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but the idea of "verifying" my real identity to a faceless website or mobile app is abhorrent.
I guess it doesn't help that governments in some countries (UK, Australia that I know of) are encouraging this bullshit with Trojan horse laws claiming to protect children from adult websites / social media.
Can't help but think there is also an element of pot meet kettle here, when users of an app designed to dox and slander people without their knowledge are now the ones getting doxxed themselves.
- California, Utah, Texas all have laws now requiring age verification to use an app store
  
  I'd be interested to know how that works with F-Droid or Aurora.
  
  If you think that's the same thing, you don't understand at least on of those things, but safe money is both...
- What if they take people's biometric aka fingerprint and to view nsfw stuff you goota use the biometric and I am not talking about passkey
  
  What if they fucked right off and left parenting what kids do on their devices to their parents?
  
  How does having my fingerprint prove my age.
  The issue is, at some point, they have to connect your "digital you" to your self as a real person, after that they can track you, keep tabs on you. If that data was ever stolen, or a corrupt government rose to power, you're really screwed.

The replies in this thread are disturbing, giving me a sense that Lemmy has a misogyny problem; maybe I was naïve, but I expected outrage about 4chan doxxing women trying to protect one another, instead I see lots of revenge enjoyment as if being doxxed on 4chan is justice for ...
<checks notes>
warning one another about dangerous men they encounter when dating?
The inability to empathize and take seriously the threats posed to women or to understand their motivation to protect one another is alarming.
There is no good faith extended, but also no evidence presented that instead of safety the app was just for gossip, it's just taken as assumed that women are wrong for using Tea and they all deserve to be doxxed.
- I'm all for groups of safe spaces for women. Especially when it's designed to keep them safe while dating. I have my doubts that Tea was that. Even if it was advertised as such, "tea" is slang for the word gossip. I've heard stories from several sources that it was used to dox people as well. Not saying what happened to the users is right. I think some users here are just feeling smug that this might cause the app to fail or shut down.
  
  Yeah, naming it "Tea" is really the cherry on top. I'd love to know more about the people behind this. It's hard to believe that anybody would be this oblivious. I guess the same kind of people who wouldn't secure their database.
  
  The app enables the photos to be run through a reverse image search, enabling them to run a basic background check, check against public sex offender databases, and check for photos that might get flagged as being used in “catfishing” — misrepresenting one’s identity online.
  The app also features a “Tea Party Group Chat,” which allows users to directly share information about men, and has a rating function, which allows users to share their experiences with Yelp-style reviews, awarding men a “green flag” or a “red flag.”
  https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/25/us/tea-app-dating-privacy-cec
  It's a bit like Rate My Professor, but for dating.
  Honestly I cyncially expect this kind of app might inevitably exist for rating people of all genders (or that dating apps might incorporate this Uber-style rating system), but the reason this app exists has directly to do with the violence women face from intimate partners.
  The point is that men who are enjoying the doxxing of women who have used this app are ignoring the context, or even have a warped sense of the context, as if this is narrowly about (legitimate) privacy concerns and the harms caused by the app.
  Even if the concerns about the app are justified, the revenge enjoyment betrays a view much harder to defend, that all the women who used the app are equally cupable, or that doxxing women using the app is equivalent to women doxxing abusive men through the app.
  Men are not all equally privileged, but there is a broad inequality both to how violence is distributed and how that plays out in dating situations. Women are not wrong to fear men. One in three women have experienced sexual or physical violence, most of that violence being perpetuated by men.
  Since this is the context for the use of this app, it's not neutral to doxx its users or to claim it's fair because men feel (legitimate) concerns about the app's privacy violations.
  
  Could you share said sources? It's irrelevant though because justifying this doxxing SHOULD mean that the entirety of 4chan is a justifiable dox target. If you don't believe that, then you should be against it happening against Tea users. They're at the very least guilty of the same thing (in this case. 4chan is guilty of much more heinous things than just this).
- Your comment was on top for me in my app, so I was like "oh how bad could it be.". Holy shit you're not wrong, there's some disgusting comments that are getting voted up.
  I'm low-key disappointed and appalled by these community members who believe these women "deserve" it for ... Trying to help each other be safer?
  
  saw this happening here, saw it happening in reddit threads on the topic, saw it all over the media cycle in the comments.
  i agree, people’s visceral backlash against this app is steeped in a deep misogyny. most of these comments have a vapid absence of any sort of even basic recognition towards these women as people. talking about them like they’re abstract figures or test subjects up in here.
  watching people take somewhat valid privacy concerns as an excuse to let loose their most toxic feelings towards women used to be the sort of thing only losers or emboldened megalomaniacs did in public, even just a decade ago.
  in the past years i’ve just seen all my peers, regardless of political affiliation, manipulated into a cult of outrage that serves as another hamster wheel upon which capital may spin.
  imtiredboss.png
- It isn't the women who are wrong; it's the app developer and 4chan. But setting aside the data breach, creating a Yelp for dating is a ticking time bomb. They were going to get sued out the ass, data breach or no data breach. I don't know how many times this needs to happen, but I guess web developers have the memory of goldfish. There have been several attempts at something similar that got shut down for the obvious reasons. Making a website that rates human beings is always going to be a legal minefield.
- The Tea app is agnostic. While its purpose and main use case was made for the safety of women in the dating scene, it was inevitably used to spread exaggerated or misleading information about otherwise innocent men. Imagine being a privacy-conscious individual, and breaking up with a toxic woman. She could go on to spread lies about you and even upload pictures of you to the reverse image search/ai. So even if you were doing everything right from a privacy standpoint, you’d still end up in someone’s private database, subjected to ai training, shared with the government, or who knows what. While I do see the purpose of apps like these, they can effectively take away someone’s privacy/dignity without them even knowing about it. Now imagine being a 4channer, someone probably even more privacy-conscious than lemmings, and possibly experiencing mental disorders like paranoid schizophrenia or autism; of course they’re drawn to hacking an app that would destroy their privacy. They are not sane individuals, so this event really was inevitable.
- Lemmy is full of people with a lot of technical knowledge, who look down on anyone without it. Just look at their responses to someone complaining and an issue on Windows, it's just a hundred people telling you what Linux distro they use.
  It's not so much mysogyny, they just can't pass up the opportunity to be smug about something.
- Tea could easily be used for two extremely different purposes:
  Legitimate use to inform and protect women from abusive men
  Illegitimate use to spread misinformation (libel!) about men with no verification of truth or reasonable appeal process
  The idea of Tea isn't bad-- I've thought about the potential utility of similar apps myself-- but most people who are reacting badly are recognizing that it's a nearly impossible moderation problem that will be used for bad things too.
  
  of course, the app has obvious problems, but I don't see that as justifying the gloating and sense of revenge enjoyment happening.
  Instead I see a kind of discontent about women I find concerning, which seems ignorant of the widespread violence women experience or what it's like for women who take risks when dating men.
  Men are not all equally problematic or privileged, but they are generally in a position of power relative to women and are acting like the victims here.
  They should direct their discontent to patriarchy which creates the situation where violence against women is dismissed or accepted, and which motivates women to use apps to check if the person they are dating has a history of violent behavior.
  Patriarchy which perpetuates the narrative that men are natural predators and women natural prey is what victimizes men here, not the women who rightfully fear and feel victimized by the minority of men who are violent.
  
  Why is everything we do, when we band together, seen as suspect and dangerous?
- Well lets be honest if someone made a gender inverse version ofctea many people would b concerned about what is being shared on the app. Honestly i find tesla disturbing and the 4 chan doxing dangerous. Both sides can be bad.
  
  Those already exist. 4chan (yes, they even kind of invented cancel culture with going after "removed" in the late 2000's), kiwifarms, various manosphere forums, Andrew Tate's Discord server, etc.
  
  sorry, are men concerned for their safety dating women such that a gender inverted version of this app makes sense? Your ignorance is what I'm talking about here ...
- I think you are misunderstanding why people are upset.
  It's horrible that these women were doxxed.
  It's also horrible that a subset of women were doxxing men, which is what brought this negative attention to the site.
  Misogyny is real in our society, misandry is real.
  Saying things happen for sexist reasons when it was for a logical reason does a disservice to movements that seek equality.
  The internet also cheered on the 4chan PII leak that happened recently, not becauase it's a male dominant space, but because they do shitty things like dox people.
- And even if it was purely a gossip app, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
- I've been seeing a lot of misogony here the past week or so. It's disheartening.
- This comment is one hour old, let's give you my SS and CC info
  
  ??
- "gossip" is for safety. It's often information that men don't want shared so it's painted like it's bad. Claiming women shouldn't gossip is just more misogyny.
  
  There is some of that happening, like when women get together and discuss how they're being treated it's "gossip" and implied as immoral.
  I think some men might read what you've said and think you are denying any toxic gossip exists, it's important to have nuance and not alienate men who otherwise would be allies, but I think overall your point is well taken.

I can't open the article, but I think I read that this was hosted on an unprotected bucket. Assuming that's correct I wouldn't say this was a breach. A better headline would be "Women dating safety app 'Tea' exposed women's PII".
To be 100% clear, I'm not excusing the hackers. I don't believe it's morally correct to publicize something because it is exposed. For folks curious about that you can look into how to ethically disclose vulnerabilities. I still view this as doxxing. I still believe what the hackers did should be a criminal offense, it's just that I also believe the app holds a ton of the blame as well. How can you proclaim to be about keeping women safe while putting them at risk? That should be punished as well.
Like if the storage facility you trusted to hold your stuff never had locks on the doors, shouldn't they take a lot of the blame as well as the thief who found out a door was unlocked?
- The bigger problem is trying to get the mainstream that would read an article like that to understand the technical difference between hacking and accessing unsecured data.
  
  One of the definitions of hacking is illegally gaining access to a computer system. It doesn't need to involve any sort of exploit. Stealing from an unlocked home is still stealing. Gaining access to a system by phishing is still hacking. Leaking data that is technically publicly accessible that isn't meant to be publicly accessible is still hacking.
  Not that I suspect anything good from 4chan but the proper thing to do would be to disclose to Tea that their data is public and allow them to fix the problem. The ethics of vulnerability disclosure still apply when the vulnerability is "hey you literally didn't secure this at all."
  
  The storage facility concept is kinda close, if you count it as "a storage facility beside a major intersection in a big facility, with the locker doors left open despite meant the warning at the front desk not to do so"

My friend came over and told me a story about this crazy date she was on. The guy love bombs her, sets her up with a massage, then in the morning, goes out and eats McDonalds alone and ghosts her. Then repeats every few weeks with love bombs.
I shared that with my discord group and someone said they know that guy too.
Im assuming that's what Tea is for.
- Wait what? How does one ghost and then repeat love bombing? Also why is eating breakfast alone remarkable? Tf is happening?
  
  Im guessing he's being way too pushy and overbearing, then goes no contact for two weeks, then repeats the process.
- ...eats McDonalds alone and ghosts her. Then repeats every few weeks with love bombs
  Something something "cheat day"
- You yadda yadda yadda'ed over the best part.
  
  And what part is that?
  
  No, I mentioned the bisque.

Protecting our users' privacy and data is our highest priority. We are taking every necessary step to ensure the security of our platform
Since sensitive data was put on a public bucket, maybe they meant it was their lowest priority?

No sympathy from me whatsoever. The app was designed to allow these women to anonymously post personal information about other people. Fuck 'em. Turnabout is fair play. As my kindergarten teacher used to say, "you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit".
- If by "personal information" you mean sharing their experiences with certain people ... Yeah I guess.
  They weren't sharing addresses and social security numbers or drivers license numbers or other things that would lead to identity theft.
  How can you not have sympathy for these women getting doxxed because they wanted to help create a safer space for one another and to help each other out? That's wild.
  This is far from turnabout, this is abuse.
  
  No, we mean "sharing what they claim is their experience and details of such"
  Maybe they weren't sharing addresses and SSN's (though what's stopping them from doing so), but like anything online it's certainly not hard to make up, spin, or highly exaggerate a story to the detriment of the subject, but without them knowing about it.
  So yeah, even if Sally Smith claims that "**Billy Jones of 125 South Street is a big loser who has undisclosed herpes, which who knows how he got it with that small dick of his", maybe the truth is that Billy refused to pay for an expensive meal on a first date it some other thing entirely.
  This isn't turnabout (as the leak wasn't intentional), and not abuse either, but it may be a bit karmic.
  ** Names and story entirely made up for example purposes
- How dare they warn other women about rapists.
- Plus the whole moral aspect of such an app. While I agree that women have been mostly objectified their whole existence, this doesn’t help anyone.
  We need to get rid of both superficial way of looking at each other ( women: seeking mostly young, beautiful, rich yes men, men: seeking perfect body, face, housewife stereotypes). Both mindsets are equally trash.
- Real
- Agreed

What are the chances of this being the main reason for the app's existence?
- Seeing as the word hack is doing a lot of heavy lifting. They didn't bother to actually secure the data and then put it on the internet for anyone to access.

I thought 4chan shut down permanently like 2 months ago?
- Cancer can return after going into remission for a while.
- Nah they came back online after like 2 weeks I think?
- They found someone to update the PHP version to one released this decade.

This is why there should be a nationwide rule that PII data should be deleted after the users identity has been verified

I had been under the impression that 4chan had also basically died due to their own site getting hacked
- That which has no life can never truly die (or something)
  
  That is not dead which can eternal lie, and in strange eons even death may die.
  I think?
- the site got hacked and most of the admins were revealed to have .gov emails but everyone pretty much already expected that so nobody actually cared and it's back to business as usual
  
  Oh my god that's... So stupid, i hate this time line.
  Dirty water that would behave no different if you sifted out the proteins.
  
  most of the admins were revealed to have .gov emails
  I remember reading that this was something someone just made up and was spread a bunch, but wasn't true at all.
- It's not like it was a complicated site, they just rebuilt it in some modern framework on the cheap.

Hungry data privacy lawyers when they learned about Tea this week:

Never upload PII to social media
Your privacy is not legally protected.

Reading these incredible comments has revealed a large piece of what was named as the reason for lemm.ee shutting down.

Self proclaimed "5 star man" Dennis Reynolds is the top suspect

I made an account on this thing to lurk, bc obviously who wouldn’t be curious? I guess I’m screwed now. Rip.

I don't quite understand the outrage in the thread. I've been looking through the comments, trying to see if this ever went beyond gossip and I can't find anything.
From my understanding the app was intended to be a safe space for women to discuss dating. Relaying information about dangerous individuals, or people who cheat. I can imagine that things might have gotten slightly out of hand in regards to anonymous gossip, but is that anything compared to being doxxed? Besides, women, and men have been gossiping behind each others backs for as long as humans have existed. An anonymous app makes it significantly worse certainly, but it is what it is. This behavior is always going to exist for better or for worse. For example, people already discuss this on sites like fetlife since the risk of ending up with someone who wants to batter you for the sake of battering you is somewhat high there.
Surely we can have some sympathy for people who have had their identifications doxxed by 4chan who haven't done anything worse than a bit of toxic gossip at most?
- you're right as far it's intentions go. I honestly couldn't give a rats ass about what it intended to do what I have a MASSIVE issue with is that it did the EXACT opposite of what it "intended to do."
  It didn't provide Women with a "safe space" because women's government issued IDs and their personal selfies were, quite literally, OUT IN THE OPEN. It opened Women who used the app to way more harm.
  Their database, and i'm being extremely generous when I call it that, wasn't even password protected. not even a simple plain text password like "password123" there was NO password. at all. period. All I would have had to do was simply see where the app sent the scanned ID's, open a terminal, SSH into it WITHOUT A PASSWORD OR KEY, and then I now have access to the IDs of over 13,000 Women. Hell I probably wouldn't have even had to SSH into it, probably could have opened the damn thing from a web browser.
  So when the media is saying 4chan "leaked" this stuff again they're being generous. It's like if you were walking down the street that Tea lived on and you noticed they left their door wide open so you decided to peak your head inside and while peaking your head in you noticed a box right by the door that had thousands of IDs in it so you picked up the box and walked out. Chances are other people got to this box before 4chan did, many people probably did, it's just that 4chan were the only ones to say "Hey I found this house with a wide open door and decided to pick up this box with all these IDs in it, neat huh?"
  
  None of this is what I am discussing. I'm talking about the people in the thread who are saying that these people deserved this.

Stay classy, 4chan. /facepalm
I can understand some people's skepticism on how quickly an app like this can turn into a gossip and defamation tool, especially when those who might be defamed can't access it... but god damn this isn't how to show people that aspect of it.
Also, not to say I don't see the value in apps like these: I absolutely do, they are there for women to protect themselves. I would suspect the number of women misusing it is in the minority and the majority use it appropriately.
Whereas a similar app for men? Those are almost instantly used for things like Revenge Porn. Men are not going to win this battle and prove they are better than women in this regard because the men who would misuse such an app are solidly in the majority. Basically the complete opposite. Events like this prove it.
Anyway, fuck 4chan misogynist freaks.
- Men are not going to win this battle and prove they are better than women in this regard because the men who would misuse such an app are solidly in the majority.
  I think there’s also a lot of confirmation bias, in the sense that you need to consider why people would seek out such an app. Why would women seek out a women-only app? And inversely, why would men seek out a men-only app? The answer to each will be fundamentally different, which means the user bases will be fundamentally different as well.
  Basically, what types of women would go out of their way to engage with a women-only app? Chances are good that the average woman has probably had the thought before, and is doing so to try and stay safe. The active engagement is seen as a positive thing, and she’s willing to jump through a few hoops (like uploading a photo ID) to get there.
  Now imagine the inverse. Most guys probably wouldn’t even think of using a men-only app for safety reasons. Like it’s not even on their radar, because safety while dating isn’t something they’re concerned with. Most men probably wouldn’t think of seeking out a men-only app at all. So the pool of men who would be willing to go out of their way to engage with a men-only app is going to look vastly different. The average user likely won’t reflect the average man, because the average man wouldn’t even think to seek out a men-only app. Or if he does, he doesn’t feel strongly enough about it to jump through any hoops to engage. It means the average user would most likely be one of the extremely toxic manosphere/men’s rights advocate/creep/etc stereotypes instead.
  To be clear, this isn’t a “not all men” post. Because the reality is that it’s certainly enough men to be concerning. My point is simply that the confirmation bias will be a large factor in whether or not the user base actually reflects the average person.
  It’s basically the same way the average Lemmy user doesn’t reflect the average person. If you looked at the average Lemmy user and tried to print that into society, you’d expect the average person to be a Linux-using communist programmer.
  
  Disclaimer: Please consider this a sort of fork of your discussion so far, I only mean to say anything about the parts of your comment I actually reference.
  ...
  Why would women seek out a women-only app? And inversely, why would men seek out a men-only app? The answer to each will be fundamentally different, which means the user bases will be fundamentally different as well.
  To a significant degree, yes, but I think you are overstating that degree.
  Tea is imo more like a gossip app, ala Nextdoor, just specific to dating.
  Tea isn't a dating app, it is... I guess you could call it ... dating-app-meta-review app, from a technically minded standpoint?
  A supplement to a (or many) dating app(s).
  ~~But it doesn't actually directly link to~~
  [(EDIT: whoops I accidentally a sentence there.)]
  It is named 'tea', as in gossiping, the deets, the low down, the real story, etc.
  Literally this is their own marketing:
  https://www.teaforwomen.com/about
  It is literally just a replacement for Facebook 'Are we dating the same guy' groups, but better, if you pay, because the Premium account allows you to run background / criminal / sex offender records.
  ...
  So, a rough equivalent for guys would probably be named something like MPH, officially Miles Per Hour, unofficially, Miles Per Hoe, I dunno, something edgy for the manosphere crowd, where guys would gossip about cheating girls/women, and also be able to run background checks on them for a premium.
  I can guarantee you that men would be broadly interested in such an app if it existed.
  ...
  Now imagine the inverse. Most guys probably wouldn’t even think of using a men-only app for safety reasons. Like it’s not even on their radar, because safety while dating isn’t something they’re concerned with.
  Maybe not as much in the safety sense of immediate physical danger, but absolutely in the sense of... is this person financially abusive, emotionally manipulative, do they have kids, or a massive amount of debt/bad spending habits, an STI, etc, that they don't mention untill they've been dating you for some time, do they have a history of acting like they're committed when they've in the past cheated whilst acting like they were monogamous?
  These kinds of things apply to both men and women, and are far more common to occur in a dating/relationship than physical abuse.
  Yes, women are more likely to be the victim of physical or sexual violence or stalking...
  But its not like this doesn't happen to men.
  I can personally tell you that I, a guy, have been so lucky as to have had all three of those happen to me, done by women.
  But lets not just use myself as an anecdote, here are the stats on that from the CDC, last updated before the Trump Admin got into power, doesn't look like they've fucked with this page.
  https://www.cdc.gov/intimate-partner-violence/about/index.html
  IPV is common. It affects millions of people in the United States each year. Data from CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) indicate:1
  About 41% of women and 26% of men experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime and reported a related impact.
  Over 61 million women and 53 million men have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
  We could quibble about the exact stats of what sex/gender the partner was, and they do cite some studies directly, but uh, oversimplifying to pretend only heterosexuality exists...
  About half as many men have been seriously, violently victimized or stalked as women, and I'd be willing to bet the psychological abuse numbers are at least a bit closer to equal if you account for men being unwilling to admit to being victimized in that way due to internalized machismo, 'shut up and deal with it', whatever you want to call it.
  ...
  Point of me saying all this is to throw numbers toward countering your claim here:
  Most men probably wouldn’t think of seeking out a men-only app at all. So the pool of men who would be willing to go out of their way to engage with a men-only app is going to look vastly different. The average user likely won’t reflect the average man, because the average man wouldn’t even think to seek out a men-only app.
  I agree that it wouldn't represent the average man, but we've got a potential user pool of 50+ million men in the US who've been through a bad relationship and would probably also not want to go through that again.
  Again, yes it is absolutely true that women more often experience a more severe form of relationship than men, no argument there.
  But I don't think you can just say that a man version of tea would only appeal to blackpilled manosphere men.
  Yes, that would likely be a large proportion of the user base, but there are tons of men who are not misogynists and also would like to avoid being played or abused.
  ...
  Also, uh:
  You say that,
  The active engagement is seen as a positive thing, and she’s willing to jump through a few hoops (like uploading a photo ID) to get there.
  But what I am seeing is:
  To access Tea, women have to verify their gender by submitting a selfie, which is then verified by the app’s team.
  https://www.fastcompany.com/91374409/everything-to-know-about-tea-the-viral-and-controversial-app-that-lets-women-mark-men-as-red-flags
  The rest of that quote is that the picture is 'verified by the Tea team', but I think we both know that almost certainly means they just use an AI face scanning tool.
  Anyway, point is: taking a selfie is a way, way lower bar to entry than taking a picture of your driver's liscense... basically every dating app already does the former, this is totally normal now, whereas the latter is... so uncommon I cannot think of an example.
  So....taking a selfie is not that much of a trifle, not a strong potential blocker, for a guy who's already used a dating app in the last 5 ish years.
  ...
  EDIT 2:
  Occured to me on reviewing this:
  ... Yeah, an AI face recognition to verify gender?
  How... does that work for trans folks, or even probably just non white women, and are women who are maybe bald or have more typically masculine coded shorter hair cuts, with less stereotypically/heuristically feminine facial features?
  AI has fucked up this kinda shit in the past quite badly.
  
  Funnily enough there was a men-only equivalent of this. It got removed from the appstore because it became a revenge porn hub.
  
  This is a valid take but also consider that the "average man" in the USA is more likely to be a Trump voter or non-voter than someone who would vote to protect women's rights. Over half of men voters vote for Republican Presidental candidates consistently. On the flip side men supporting Democrat Presidential candidates mostly clocks in at just above 40%. When you account for the size of the USA, those differences are pretty big and put arguably awful men in the clear majority.
- Are you projecting or what is this?
- I would suspect the number of women misusing it is in the minority and the majority use it appropriately.
  Well just look at Facebook groups that are dedicated to the same sort of thing and see how catty they get. You know the types that decide that just because a man they have never seen before is in the neighbourhood he's clearly up to no good when he's probably just delivering parcels.
  Anyway it doesn't matter if 90% were legitimate and 10% not. They are still defaming people, with no opportunity for those people to correct the record. Anyway I am a much more cynical person, mostly through experience of working in customer service, and I think it's probably more like 50/50.