Grindr at the Paris Olympics: Protecting LGBTQ+ athletes’ privacy and safety

In case you one way or the other have not heard, the Olympics are in Paris this 12 months, and it looks like everybody’s utilizing the video games to degree up their relationship sport and hopefully discover a new (athletic) associate within the metropolis of affection.

Tinder’s launched an advert marketing campaign for the Olympics, encouraging customers to “join with professional athletes” through the Passport Mode function. Apparently, the phrases “Olympian” and “athlete” have seen a big improve in mentions on the app too.

However Grindr’s taking a special method: As an alternative of selling hookups with athletes, Grindr’s specializing in making a secure digital area for LGBTQ+ athletes, particularly these from international locations the place their identification may put them in danger. This is not new for Grindr both; they carried out related security measures throughout the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

For customers inside the Olympic Village, Grindr is disabling location-based options like “Discover” and “Roam,” and making the “present distance” function opt-in. The corporate has additionally carried out safeguards like blocking screenshots to stop unintentional outings.

Different privateness controls embody the power to ship limitless disappearing messages and unsend messages after they have been despatched (even totally free customers). Grindr’s additionally disabling non-public movies inside the Olympic Village and sending out weekly reminders about potential dangers, simply to maintain everybody secure and knowledgeable.

The app additionally famous that the one advertisements that can seem on Grindr inside the village will likely be from Grindr for Equality, which promotes well being and security assets.

“You will not see third-party commercials — solely Grindr for Equality public service bulletins to assist maintain customers knowledgeable and secure,” Grindr introduced.

It is unlucky that we’d even want these kinds of security measures, however the actuality is that in some components of the world, LGBTQ+ people nonetheless face extreme discrimination, persecution, and even the specter of violence. Hopefully, with Grindr taking these proactive steps, LGBTQ+ athletes can join with out worry of being outed or focused.