DUBLIN (Reuters) - The Catholic archbishop of Dublin has removed trainee priests from Ireland's largest seminary over allegations of widespread use of the gay sex app Grindr and the failure of the authorities to properly investigate it.

The move is the latest scandal to hit the Catholic Church in Ireland, once the defining influence on public life, but now humbled by reports of child sex abuse stretching back decades and of church leaders' complicity in covering them up.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said a series of anonymous allegations about a gay sex culture at the Maynooth seminary, where over 50 students are training to be priests, had been compounded by the college authorities' failure to investigate.

"One (allegation) is that there is a homosexual, gay culture, that students have been using an app called Grindr, which would be inappropriate for seminarians and not just because they are going to be celibate priests," Martin said in an interview with Irish state broadcaster RTE on Tuesday.

"If this is going on a large scale in the seminary and it hasn't been noticed in the seminary, then there is something wrong," he said.

He said there were also allegations that students who had spoken to the authorities had been dismissed from the seminary. A series of anonymous allegations and counter-allegations had poisoned the culture at the college, he added.

The president of the seminary, Hugh Connolly, said no investigation had taken place because there had been no official complaint.

"It is very important that anything we do, we do in natural justice, in other words, that we will always act only when we have clarity and when we have grounds to act," Connolly told RTE. "Broadly speaking, I think the atmosphere is a very good one." 

(Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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An Italian banker strangled a Met Police officer at a sex party before dissolving his body in a bath of acid, the Old Bailey heard.

Stefano Brizzi, 50, allegedly murdered PC Gordon Semple at his Bermondsey flat after meeting through gay dating app Grindr for “extreme” sadomasochistic sex. 

After strangling the 59-year-old officer, Brizzi used a saw to chop up the body, disposing of some parts in the River Thames, the court heard. 

When neighbours complained of a “revolting” smell coming from the flat, police were called and caught Brizzi trying to dispose of the rest of the body. 

“Inside the flat, the officers were met with a sight that must have been beyond anything for which they had been trained”, said prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC. 

“In the bathroom, the bath was full of what turned out to be acid."

Mr Aylett added that flesh was found in the bath. 

He added: "On the bathroom floor were plastic buckets containing human remains.”

Quizzed about what happened, Brizzi allegedly told the officer: “I’ve tried to dissolve the body...I’ve killed a police officer.

“I killed him last week. I met him on Grindr and I killed him. Satan told me to.”

Mr Aylett warned the jury as he opened the case: “The nature of the evidence, I am afraid, is such as to call for strong stomachs as well as broad minds.” 

The court heard Brizzi invited PC Semple, from Greenhithe, Dartford, to his flat on the Peabody Estate in Southwark Street on April 1, despite him being on duty. 

Mr Aylett said the officer was openly gay and in a relationship, but was “sexually promiscuous” and used Grindr to meet other men. 

He said: “The sexual activity that followed might be of an extreme nature: domination, bondage, and much else besides. It is also the case that drugs were often involved.”

PC Semple went to meet Brizzi on April 1, texting that he was “free now for hot dirty sleazy session”, and together they invited others to a gay sex orgy. 

Mr Aylett said two men said they were interested in joining in, but one was put off by the possible use of drugs. 

Mr Aylett said an associate of Brizzi told police he was a fan of hit TV show Breaking Bad.

"Stefano Brizzi had been obsessed with the American television show Breaking Bad", he told the jury.

"In the series a chemistry teacher named Walter White starts producing crystal meth.

"At first this is done to pay for medical care but he soon decades into the criminal underworld - after poisoning a rival White ends up dissolving the body in acid."

Jurors have heard Brizzi was hooked on crystal meth and had lost his job at Morgan Stanley when the drugs were affecting his lifestyle. 

The other man, known in court as CD, arrived at Brizzi’s home later in the afternoon, but when he pressed the buzzer he was told: “We are having a situation here. Someone fell ill but we’re taking care of it. So our party is cancelled.”

Mr Aylett said: “CD must have arrived at the front door of the block at the very point at which Gordon Semple was meeting his death inside the defendant’s flat.” 

The court heard that Brizzi later told the police: “I was right in the middle of strangling Gordon and I said to - he was right at the door - and I said to him: ‘Look, this is not the right time now, people are falling ill on drugs and it’s a mess’. 

“Over the next few days, the defendant’s neighbours became increasingly conscious of a revolting smell that was coming from the defendant’s flat.”

The discovery of PC Semple’s remains was not made until April 7, a week after he had been killed, when Brizzi answered the door wearing only sunglasses and his underpants. 

A missing persons search was launched for the Scottish-born officer before the eventual discovery that he was dead. 

Brizzi, of the Peabody Estate, in Southwark Street, Bermondsey, has pleaded guilty to obstructing a coroner by disposing of the body, but denies murder.

The trial continues.

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As the dating app Tinder turns five, new research shows men who regularly use the app have more body image concerns and lower self-esteem.

The research found Tinder users reported lower levels of satisfaction with their faces and higher levels of shame about their bodies. And users were also more likely to view their bodies as sexual objects.

This is hardly surprising given that Tinder’s "evaluative factors" have the potential to intensify preexisting cultural beauty ideals. The app’s "swipe right to dismiss" facility, along with the limited number of words a user can write on their profile means appearance take center stage.

In other words, the more conventionally attractive your photos are, the more likely you are to be clicked, swiped or hit upon by other users.

But whether men use Tinder or not, most will report dissatisfaction with some aspect of their appearance. This could be anything from height, body hair, muscularity, skin tautness, shoe size, penis size, facial symmetry, head hair amount and more. Sadly there are few areas of the body men do not find fault with.

The body beautiful?

Over the last few decades boys’ and men’s appearances have come under increasing scrutiny. This is largely because in the 1980s businesses finally started exploiting a relatively untapped market: the appearance insecurities of men.

To demonstrate - today men are sold anti-cellulite cream for their pecs, hair transplants for their facial hair and "manscara" for their eyes. Then there are the boys’ action dolls that have gained muscle and lost body fat with each successive edition. Add this to the fact that 80% of the men featured in popular media such as Men’s Health magazine are of a muscular body build – with many of these models taking drastic measures in the weeks leading up to photos shoots to make sure they look lean.

These models also tend to have a full head of hair and symmetrical faces. The same goes for porn sites– where almost all of the men featured are equally ripped and stereotypically "handsome."

It’s unsurprising then that boys today feel they are growing up in a world which focuses heavily upon their appearance.

Of course, this is a problem that has plagued women and girls for decades. And in the way that this has impacted girls for so long, now this pressure is impacting on boys’ well-being.

One recent study found almost one in five boys had resorted to diet pills, purging, skipping meals, steroids or tanning products to change their appearance.

"White washing"

But beyond appearance pressures, dating apps are doubly damaging because they often operate in a sphere where sexual racism is commonplace.

The dating app OKCupid recently analyzed sexual racism among 1 million of its male site users. The company found that compared to black, Asian or minority ethnic users, white users got more messages. White users were also found to be less likely to reply or match with users of a different race to themselves, and more likely to question interracial marriage.

Recent research from Australia also found that 15% of gay men on the dating app Grindr included sexual racism on their profiles. This was more likely to be the case if the profile user was white, and if the user held broader racist views.

I too have noticed gay men who write offensive terms that specify race preferences on their profiles – such as "Black=block," "no gaysians" or even "no chocolate or rice." In its terms and conditions Grindr bans offensive speech. Which is in part why, three years ago, I started a Twitter account, @GrindrRacism to encourage Grindr to remove offensive profiles. Disappointingly Grindr has often been slow to act though – meaning sexual racism is still present on the app.

Dating elite

Of course apps aren’t the cause of racism around sexual preferences.

Instead like appearance pressures, users are influenced by what’s going on in wider society. By not tackling those problems in society, however, – for example cracking down on offensive speech – apps can act as enablers for racism and insecurity.

So while in some ways, these apps have brought our dating lives into the 21st century – where casual sex is more accepted and where gay men can meet other gay men without being imprisoned– in other ways, they also remind me of the 1950s, a time when shops would hang "No Blacks" signs in their doorways and when magazines like Playboy relentlessly objectified women’s appearances.

Ultimately given that more people are using dating apps than ever before, they need to work for everyone – not just those who are "attractive" or white.

SEE ALSO: Tinder will now let you see who likes you — but there's a major catch

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• Grindr shared users' HIV status and dates of their most recent tests with two third-party companies, a BuzzFeed News report revealed.
• This data can be linked to users' locations, phone IDs, and email addresses.
• The company has since said it would stop sharing the user information, but defended its previous data-sharing as "industry practice."

Grindr has defended its sharing of users' HIV statuses and locations with third parties as "industry practice."

The LGBTQ dating app, which has more than 3.6 million daily active users around the world, was recently revealed by BuzzFeed News to have shared the HIV statuses of its users as well as the dates of their most recent tests with two data optimisation companies.

While the two companies, Apptimize and Localytics, were only given limited user information, each user's HIV status and "last tested date" were linked to other personal information including GPS data, phone ID, and email address.

In other words, the companies would be able pinpoint an individual user's identity and location and link them to their HIV status. This could potentially endanger people living in countries or communities where homosexuality is frowned upon or even outlawed.

Grindr announced it would stop sharing users' HIV status hours after BuzzFeed's report published. However, Scott Chen, the company's chief technology officer, defended the company's data-sharing as an "industry standard use of third party partners."

Chen also insisted that Grindr doesn't sell user information to third parties and that its contractors do not share the user information any further.

But the fact that the user information was now held by at least three separate companies — Grindr, Apptimize, and Localytics — made the data more vulnerable to hacks, tech security expert Cooper Quintin told BuzzFeed.

Logging HIV statuses and last tested dates is optional on the app, meaning not every user was exposed through the Apptimize/Localytics contract.

However, Grindr has also shared users' precise GPS position, sexuality, relationship status, ethnicity, and phone ID with other third-party advertising companies, BuzzFeed reported. This data was sometimes shared via "plain text," which can be easily hacked. 

SEE ALSO: Grindr is trying to shake up the sleepy LGBTQ media sector with its new millennial lifestyle magazine Into

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• A Delta Air Lines passenger said his pilot sent him a message on the dating app Grindr while the flight was still in midair. 
• JP Thorn got the message when the plane touched down, but saw it was sent 30 minutes before the 90-minute flight landed in Chicago in August.
• He told the New York Post that when he got the message on the tarmac, "I knew I needed to get off this plane as fast as I can."
• Thorn briefly messaged the pilot after the flight and said he was a "nice guy."

A passenger who took a Delta Air Lines flight earlier this year said the pilot operating his flight sent him a Grindr message while they were "30,000 feet in the air."

The passenger, JP Thorn, told the New York Post the pilot texted him on the dating app during the 90-minute flight from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Chicago in August.

Thorn said he noticed the message after landing, but saw that it was sent 30 minutes before the plane's landing — meaning the pilot was flying and texting at the same time.

Thorn, 27, tweeted a screenshot of the message from the pilot on Sunday. It said: "I see you're on my flight. Enjoy the ride to Chicago."

"I messaged him back and he told me that he was one of the pilots. My reaction was I knew I needed to get off this plane as fast as I can," Thorn told the Post.

"I’ve had some weird experiences with proximity stuff on Grindr," he added.

But Thorn chatted with the pilot while he waited for his connecting flight and said it turned out the pilot was a "nice guy" and he "totally would have met him for coffee."

That being said, Thorn hasn't spoken to the pilot since, he told the Post.

"I got a lot of people saying I should've met up with pilots because they make a lot of money," he said.

He added that the experience hasn't affected his decision to fly with Delta, and that he would do so again.

INSIDER has contacted Delta for comment.

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• The president of gay dating app Grindr has said he believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. 
• His comments related to Taiwan's recent referendum rejecting gay marriage.
• He justified his remarks saying, "Different people have their different feelings about their marriages."

Scott Chen, president of the gay dating app Grindr, said he believes "marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman" in a Facebook post.

Mr Chen's remarks have sparked criticism within the company, forcing him to clarify his position on gay marriage and LGBT+ rights.

The tech executive's comments related to Taiwan's recent referendum rejecting gay marriage and were first translated and reported by Into— a website owned by Grindr.

Although Mr Chen deleted his original post, written in Chinese, he responded to the article with another post written in English explaining his views.

"Some people think the marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman. And I think so too. But that's your own business," Mr Chen wrote.

"Some people think the purpose of the marriage is to have a child [that] carries your DNA. But again, that's your own business."

"The reason I said marriage is a holy matrimony between a man and a woman is based on my own personal experience," he added.

"I am a straight man married to a woman I love and I have two beautiful daughters I love from the marriage. This is how I feel about my marriage. Different people have their different feelings about their marriages. You can’t deny my feelings about my marriage."

Read more: A Delta passenger says the pilot of his flight sent him a Grindr message while they were in midair

Yet the Grindr chief also insisted he supported marriage equality.

"I am a huge advocate for LGBTQ+ rights since I was young. I support gay marriage and I am proud that I can work for Grindr."

Zach Stafford, the editor-in-chief of Into, who is also Grindr’s chief content officer, said Mr Chen's personal views were not representative of the company.

"Grindr's goal as a company is to help seek the full equity of all LGBT people's rights around the world, especially when it comes to dating and love. And marriage for many is an end goal to our app," he told The Guardian.

Mr Chen first joined Grindr as chief technology officer after the company was bought by the Chinese gaming giant Kunlun Group in January 2018. He was named as president in August.

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• Daniel Jenkins, 19, and Michael Atkinson, 24, were charged with conspiracy to commit hate crimes, kidnapping and carjacking, an unsealed indictment revealed on Wednesday. 
• The men are accused of using fake Grindr profiles to lure gay men to their apartment to beat and rob them, the indictment said. 
• The Texas state attorney's office said the men used Grindr to "lure at least nine men, ages 19 to 57, to an apartment complex, where they were assaulted, taunted, and robbed."

Two men in Texas have been charged with hate crimes after being accused of using the app Grinder to lure at least nine men into their apartment and beat and rob them, an unsealed indictment revealed on Wednesday.

Daniel Jenkins, 19, and Michael Atkinson, 24, were named in the 15-count indictment, US Attorney Erin Nealy Cox of the Northern District of Texas told The Huffington Post.

The incidents occurred in an apartment complex east of Dallas in the first two weeks of December 2017, the indictment said.

The two men, from Dallas, were charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to commit hate crimes, kidnapping and carjacking, a statement from the state attorney’s office said. They were also charged with brandishing a firearm, aiding and abetting kidnapping, the Star-Telegram reported.

Read more:A 21-year-old man has been charged with raping an 11-year-old girl he met on Tinder

The state attorney's office said the men "allegedly used fake profiles targeting gay men on Grindr, a GTBQ dating app, to lure at least nine men, ages 19 to 57, to an apartment complex, where they were assaulted, taunted, and robbed."

At least five of the victims were physically assaulted, one of sexually assaulted with an object, and one was smeared with feces, the state attorney's office said.

During the assaults, the victims were held at gunpoint inside an apartment where they were subjected to gay slurs and robbed of their wallets, money, keys, cars, driver’s licenses, cell phones, and credit cards, the indictment said, according to Dallas News.

"Criminals are using apps like Grindr to single out victims based on their sexual orientation. My office is committed to rooting out these despicable crimes motivated by hate," Cox told Dallas News.

Jenkins and Atkinson were arrested in August 2018. They remain in custody.

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• Grindr has reportedly laid off staffers at its LGBT publication INTO, saying the company will pivot to video.
• The decision follows numerous controversies at the publication, including a dispute between editorial staffers and Grindr's CEO, who INTO reported made comments against gay marriage.
• Grindr's pivot to video and its layoffs follow in the footsteps previous digital media companies that pursued the strategy such as Mic.

Grindr, the LGBT dating app, has reportedly laid off editorial staffers of its digital publication INTO on Tuesday, in what it's describing as a pivot to video. The move follows a series of editorial controversies that included retracted articles and a conflict between editorial staff and Grindr executives.

"Grindr is not shutting down INTO," a Grindr representative said over email. "INTO's brand and the site will continue. We are shifting our focus to video content."

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• A Chinese company that acquired gay-dating app Grindr has to sell it off after the US government labeled the company a national security risk, Reuters reported Tuesday.
• Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd fully acquired the California-based app in 2018. 
• The company last year announced preparations for an IPO for Grindr, but sources told Reuters the company is now looking to sell Grindr outright.
• The app, which had 27 million users as of 2017, contains sensitive data about its users, like their HIV status, which malicious actors could seek to exploit. 

A Chinese company that acquired gay-dating app Grindr is reportedly selling it off after the US government labeled it a national security risk.

Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd acquired a 60% stake in Grindr in 2016, before buying the rest last year.

But sources told Reuters that the company did not clear its purchase with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a US government agency which assesses the national security risk of foreign investments.

The sale prompted a review, after which CFIUS told Kunlun that its ownership of the California-based app constitutes a security risk, sources told Reuters.

The company is now looking to sell Grindr, according to the report, despite announcing preparations for an IPO last August. 

CFIUS last year blocked the acquisition of money transfer company MoneyGram International Inc by a Chinese financial group owned by billionaire Jack Ma, reportedly citing security concerns. 

The US has increased scrutiny of app developers and the data they handle, which it argues could compromise the security of military or intelligence personnel. 

Elliott Zaagman, a tech writer partly based in Beijing, said that apps like Grindr hold sensitive information about its users which could be exploited.

Grindr, which had 27 million users as of 2017, allows users to say whether they are HIV positive, and also allows users to send photos, which are often sexually explicit. 

Zaagman says that, while China has an interest in hacking into such a database filled with personal information, they can probably breach the system "whether or not it's owned by a Chinese company."

"If a sophisticated state actor is determined to get into an app's database, they will probably be able to find a way."

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• Sexual racism, or racialized sexual discrimination, on queer dating apps like Grindr and Scruff is a significant problem.  
• Researchers Ryan Wade and Gary Harper created a scale to measure the psychological impacts of sexual racism on young men of color. 
• The results found that black men who were objectified on these platforms experienced higher rates of depression and lower rates of self-worth. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more.

"No Blacks, No Asians." 

This isn't language taken from a segregation-era poster. Rather, they're "dating preferences" listed on some queer men's online dating profiles, found on apps like Grindr and Scruff. 

Queer digital dating spaces — especially those involving men — have a race problem. And while apps like Grindr have launched campaigns to combat racism on their platforms, there's little existing research on how this form of racism impacts young men of color. 

There isn't even a way to clearly measure the impacts of this kind of racism in general. Most research on young gay and bisexual black men focuses on HIV/AIDS while neglecting other important areas of study, according to Ryan Wade, a University of Illinois social work professor.

This lack of data inspired Wade and Gary Harper, a University of Michigan health behavior professor, to create a scale and survey measuring the psychological impacts of Racialized Sexual Discrimination (RSD) on young men of color. 

Overall, their research confirmed that racism on queer dating apps can have significant negative health impacts on men of color, including depression and feelings of lower self-worth. 

The most common forms of sexual racism included men of color being excluded, rejected, degraded, or objectified by white men. 

Racism in online dating spaces has "been a part of the popular discourse for a very long time within the queer community" according to Wade.

One study participant even tested how race impacted the way he was rejected by other users by remaking his entire Grindr profile with no photos, and his race switched from black to white. 

"Even with no profile photo, he said the number of messages he got increased four-fold," Wade said.

The problem is so pervasive that Grindr launched the "Kindr" campaign in 2018 to try and combat RSD amongst its users. 

"Racism is a serious concern for Grindr and the community at large, and this prompted us to launch our Kindr campaign to further the conversation about the various types of discrimination that happen online," a Grindr representative told Insider. 

But because previous research on RSD was primarily based on interviews and other personal anecdotal experience, it wasn't possible to look at overall trends on the impact of racism on these online dating communities. In developing their scale, Wade and Harper wanted to quantify how RSD manifests online as well as its effect on self-worth and depression. 

The scale broke down RSD into four distinct areas — exclusion, rejection, degradation, and erotic objectification. 

When the researchers put their scale to the test on a survey group of 2,000 young men of color, they found people who were erotically objectified experienced higher rates of depression and lower rates of self-worth. 

While being rejected individually by white men didn't have a significant impact, those who reported being immersed in a dating app environment where whiteness was seen as the most desirable characteristic also reported higher rates of depression and negative self-worth.

Being objectified by white men had the worst impact on mental well-being for participants 

According to Wade, erotic objectification stems from certain racial groups being stereotyped in the context of sex, like assuming that black men are aggressive or dominant in the bedroom. 

Erotic objectification was the only kind of RSD in the study that was linked to both elevated rates of depression and lower rates of self-worth. Wade said that this finding was surprising for researchers. 

"If you're being objectified, theoretically that could provide an opportunity for you to find an intimate partner. And if that's their goal, we didn't know if that would maybe offset the negative effects," Wade said. 

Wade eventually wants to turn the research into a national campaign against sexual racism

Looking beyond the scale, Wade said that he and Harper hope to eventually use their findings to prevent RSD from occurring. 

"I think of the success of things like the  'It Gets Better' campaign or the Trevor Project and how these have been successful to bringing awareness around things like LGBTQ bullying and suicide," Wade said. "I could envision something similar to RSD."

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• Grindr is sending users' identifying information and location to dozens of ad companies, according to a new watchdog report.
• Grindr is the world's biggest gay dating app. By identifying its users to ad companies, it essentially broadcasts their sexual orientation to third parties.
• OkCupid and Tinder also share users' dating choices and location with ad companies, the report found.
• The report's authors have called on regulators in the US and Europe to investigate whether the apps are violating privacy laws.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Many of Grindr's users intentionally browse the app discreetly, hiding their name and face from public view to avoid being outed on the world's most popular gay dating app. Its logo, a mask, points to this air of secrecy.

But Grindr itself is sending advertising companies identifying information about its users, which in turn is shared with many other businesses, according to a new report from the Norwegian Consumer Council, which we first saw in The New York Times.

The report analyzed data-sharing practices of dozens of Android apps. Researchers also found that apps owned by Match Group, including OkCupid and Tinder, send users' demographics, location, and answers to personal questions on topics like drug use and dating preferences to marketing firms.

"Consumers are still pervasively tracked and profiled online and have no way of knowing which entities process their data and how to stop them," the report's authors wrote.

Grindr did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Grindr's website says that users who agree to its privacy policy are "directing us to disclose" personal information to ad partners.

In response to the Norwegian Consumer Council report, Twitter announced that it has disabled Grindr from accessing its ad network, MoPub, according to AdAge.

In a statement to Business Insider, a Match Group spokesperson said the company values user privacy and will "only share the specific information deemed necessary to operate our platform, in line with the applicable laws." 

The report calls on regulators in Europe and the US to investigate whether the practices violate privacy laws. Two recent laws in the European Union and California aim to tighten users' control over how online platforms share their personal data, and could play a role in regulating data-sharing going forward.

In nations where homosexuality is illegal, police have used Grindr to track down and prosecute LGBTQ people. According to the Norwegian report, Grindr distributes people's unique user-tracking code to its ad partners, which can be tied directly to a person's real-life identity.

Grindr has previously faced backlash for disclosing users' HIV status to third-party companies, but has since stopped that practice.

Read the full Norwegian Consumer Council report here.

SEE ALSO: A new law gives you the power to tell websites not to sell your personal data. Here's how to exercise your rights.

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• Dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge have reported increased use amid the coronavirus pandemic, while touting virtual dating alternatives for users instead of meeting up in person.
• Swaths of users are still encouraging matches to break quarantine to have sex and go on dates, despite social distancing guidelines and fines to comply with them.
• An illustrator on Instagram has been collecting screenshots of these situations, and told Business Insider that users will brand themselves as "badasses," dispute the effectiveness of isolating, and lash out in anger and hurl abusive language when they're rejected.
• Spokespeople for Grindr, Tinder and Bumble told Business Insider they've informed users to adhere to social-distancing guidelines, but did not respond to inquiries about actions they're taking against users in places where violating lockdown orders can be against the law.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As millions remain confined to their homes to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the desire for human contact and connection has risen dramatically and led some to search for ways to break those social distancing rules.

Popular dating apps — including Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge — have reported significant increases during the outbreak of swiping activity, matches between users, and messages exchanged. It's also led to the introduction of a breed of users who are interested in shirking lockdown orders, and are encouraging their matches to join them in doing the same.

Dating app users have shared stories across social media, and recently with Mashable, about messages they've received from matches who ask them to come over or want to hook up. Artist Samantha Rothenberg, who uses the handle @violetclair on Instagram, has been collecting these screenshots from followers, and told Business Insider she's received close to a thousand of such stories.

"Because of how common it is, I can honestly say that anyone who is on a dating app right now has dealt with this," Rothenberg told Business Insider. "People are horny, and a lot of people are putting that ahead of the risk and the danger."

For dating platforms whose end goal is inherently to bring its millions of users together in real life, the coronavirus outbreak has put them in a curious predicament. Dating apps are forced to balance a desire to keep people on their platform for the sake of business, with a moral responsibility to discourage users to engage in behavior with potential life-or-death implications.

Since the start of the outbreak, apps have rolled out in-app virtual dating options and touted ways users can go on virtual dates. However, the prevalence of users who are trying to meet up in person, as documented by Rothenberg and screenshots across social media, raise questions about whether these dating platforms are doing enough to stymie such behavior in the time of coronavirus.

Rothenberg has long collected screenshots of users' horror stories from dating app interactions, which she often will depict in illustrations she posts to her Instagram account. But ever since the pandemic led states to instill lockdown orders starting in March, nearly all of the screenshots she's received have had to do with coronavirus.

These lockdown-violating users fall into a few general categories, according to Rothenberg. There's the users who try to paint themselves as "badasses" for breaking the rules, though Rothenberg says they're more like "a--holes." There are the matches who propose meeting up and, after getting rejected, reverse course to say they're were joking or "testing" you, she says. You'll also encounter the anti-quarantine user, whose reasoning is based on claims about herd immunity and the ineffectiveness of social distancing measures.

The last group is made up of users who react to "no" with anger and verbal abuse, Rothenberg told Business Insider. Women told Mashable recently about encounters with men on dating apps who badgered and harassed them after they turned down in-person meetings, going to the point of gaslighting.

These types of users are what led Rothenberg to launch a petition on Change.org to hold dating apps responsible for enforcing social distancing guidelines during the pandemic. She's also been active about calling out dating apps in her Instagram Stories she posts with screenshots she receives.

"People are angry, they tell me, 'can you believe this, this is disgusting, this is wrong,'" Rothenberg said. "Because I have this platform, I feel I have a bit of a responsibility to put these [stories] out in the open and share, and bring some light into what's going on out there to people who may not know."

In late March, platforms sent out various messages and alerts to their users that Rothenberg documented on Instagram. A message to Bumble users from CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said: "Please don't meet your Bumble matches IRL for now." Hinge users were told to "stay safe and keep connected."

Tinder, arguably the most well-know dating app, also discouraged users to meet up in a platform-wide message sent March 26.

"We know there's a lot to stay to each other as we all do our best to stay healthy and prevent the spread of the coronavirus," the message from Tinder said. "We hope to be a place for connecting during this challenging time, but it's important to stress that now is not the time to meet IRL with your match."

Dating apps' responsibilities to pivot from IRL to TXT

As companies across industries adjust business to stay afloat, dating apps have transitioned to emphasize alternatives to in-person meetups. Although online dating success has long been measured by the amount of conversations that turn to real-life connections, platforms are forced to rethink their strategy as users continue turning to them en masse. A poll conducted by Hinge found that 70% of its users said they were open to going on dates on Zoom, FaceTime, and other video platforms.

Some dating brands have introduced new features amid the pandemic. Hinge launched "Date from Home" in April, where users can indicate to a match they're ready to move their conversation off-app. Plenty of Fish started rolling out a livestreaming feature in March to users in the U.S. to allow matches to go on short virtual dates. Tinder, relatively late to the game, announced this week it was launching a video chat feature by the end of June.

A spokesperson for Match Group — the parent company on Tinder, Hinge, Plenty of Fish, and other dating platforms — told Business Insider that it made updates to its products "to help users better navigate stay-from-home policies and date digitally via phone or video."

Other apps that already enabled video chat and voice call, like The League and Bumble, are pushing these features to their users more than ever. 

But while users on these dating apps are swiping and messaging at new highs, the transition to virtual-only hasn't been as seamless for those on Grindr, the most popular dating app for gay men. Steve, a 26-year-old living in Washington, D.C., told Business Insider that activity on Grindr is "completely dead." He said he doesn't check the app nearly as often any more, but messages he does get on the app are largely from people who say they want to meet up despite the quarantine.

Grindr, like other apps, has attempted to pivot to virtual dating: The platform recently introduced Circles, where groups of up to 20 users can join chats centered around certain topics and interests. However, Steve said he's seen these groups largely dissolve into "all d--k pics."

"I dont think Grindr has the ability to rebrand itself honestly at this point for something other than hookups," Steve said. "They tried to take the opportunity to rebrand itself as something else, and it just right away became sexual."

A Grindr spokesperson told Business Insider it had sent in-app notifications to all users asking them to "refrain from in-person meetings right now."Nonetheless, an app-wide message sent to users — and shared by users on Twitter— made no mention of asking users to social distance. 

For users across these dating apps who encourage the violating of social distancing guidelines, it's unclear how much responsibility platforms have to keep their users' indoors. In some states under lockdown, authorities havedoled out fines and even arrested residents found failing to follow at-home guidelines.

Grindr, Bumble and Match Group — the parent company of Tinder, Hinge, Plenty of Fish and others — told Business Insider in statements they have encouraged users to adhere to coronavirus guidelines from the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control.

None of the companies responded to Business Insider's requests for comment about whether asking to violate social-distancing guidelines on the platforms is a breach of policy or would garner any ban or suspension on a user.

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• LGBTQ dating apps collect and store information on their users, like all apps. But they come with unique security risks because if it falls into the wrong hands, that data could be used to "out" people — or, in some countries, to prosecute them.
• A new study from cybersecurity firm Recorded Future takes stock of the threats facing LGBTQ people across the globe, compares how queer dating apps' security stacks up, and provides advice for queer and trans people to digitally protect themselves from surveillance and entrapment.
• Governments across the globe that forbid homosexuality have surveilled apps like Grindr to prosecute people, according to the report. Scammers also use queer dating apps to gather information on people and blackmail them.
• One app, Scruff, received praise from security researchers for taking extra steps to protect user data.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In countries where homosexuality and gender nonconformity are illegal, police are increasingly using queer dating apps to surveil and entrap LGBTQ people, according to a new report.

Researchers from cybersecurity firm Recorded Future published a comprehensive report Tuesday that lays out the risks associated with queer dating apps and gives advice to LGTBQ people to digitally protect themselves against surveillance.

It's one of the first and most comprehensive reports of its kind. The report was spearheaded by LGBTQ staff at Insikt, Recorded Future's research arm.

"A lot of LGBTQ issues aren't addressed in the threat intelligence space," Insikt consultant Evan Akin told Business Insider. "In the past it just doesn't get the attention I think it might deserve."

The report provides a comprehensive list of instances of government surveillance and prosecution across the globe in recent years that relied on queer dating apps or forums. Police in Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon, Ghana, and other countries have identified and lured LGBTQ people by posing as potential romantic interests on dating apps, according to intelligence aggregated in the report.

"We wanted to raise awareness and heighten everyone's sensitivity as they travel to these different regions," Insikt Group senior director Maggie McDaniel told Business Insider.

Researchers compared the data practices of Tinder, OKCupid, Grindr, Scruff, and HER. Of those, just one app — Scruff — garnered praise for taking extra steps to protect user data. Scruff anonymizes users' location, making it harder to track, and sends alerts when users are traveling to countries with anti-LGBTQ laws. Scruff is also the only of the five apps that has cut ties with third-party data brokers in favor of an in-house ad and analytics business.

"By contrast, OKCupid, Grindr, and Tinder have been found to collect user data — including users' exact location, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, political beliefs, drug use, and more — and share that data with at least 135 different third-party entities," the report says.

Some of those data-sharing practices first came to light earlier this year, when the Norwegian Consumer Council found that Grindr, OKCupid, and Tinder sent users' identifying information to third-party advertisers. Before that, Grindr faced backlash for sharing users' HIV status with third parties, but said it discontinued the practice in 2018.

Grindr's website says that users who agree to its privacy policy are "directing us to disclose" personal information to ad partners, while Tinder and OKCupid have said they will "only share the specific information deemed necessary to operate our platform."

Read the full findings from Recorded Future researchers here.

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The Trump administration's hardline stance against ByteDance and TikTok has turned into something of a public spectacle, which is unusual when it comes to government scrutiny of deals for national security concerns.

But ByteDance isn't the first foreign — or, particularly, Chinese — company to come under scrutiny by US authorities for collecting data on Americans. Nor is it the first to be forced to essentially undo an acquisition or investment to address officials' concerns.

And it almost certainly won't be the last to either draw scrutiny or be forced to divest, international trade law experts told Business Insider.

More broadly, though, the ByteDance saga may be a sign of what's to come, as governments around the world start to pay closer attention to who's controlling the data and technology used by their citizens, they said.

"Everyone's wrestling with the issue of how you control third-party apps and services," said James Lewis, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security think tank.

There's growing concern about control over data

In years and decades past, international trade, business, investments, and acquisitions have generally spurred national security concerns in the US only when they involved products with fairly obvious military applications or infrastructure such as ports that could be critical to the nation's defense. But in recent years, there's been a growing consensus that such deals and dealings should be scrutinized not just for military threats but also for the impact they could have on the American economy and whether they would give a foreign adversary the chance to surveil or manipulate individual US citizens.

That broader understanding of national security predates President Trump, but it's come to new prominence in his administration, particularly with regard to the challenge it sees from China. The administration has famously cracked down on Huawei, for example, over concerns about the company's technology infiltrating American networks and being used to spy for the Chinese government on US institutions and citizens. In response, federal officials have effectively banned it from using Google's version of Android in its devices and blocking its access to US chip-making technology and designs, stymieing its ability to make its own smartphone chips.

The administration's moves against ByteDance come out of similar motivations, at least as it's presented them. In the ByteDance case, though, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, of CFIUS, has taken the lead. CFIUS is the interagency group in the federal government that reviews investments, acquisitions, and mergers for national security concerns. Unlike in the ByteDance situation, CFIUS usually acts quietly, behind the scenes, not in the public spotlight.

ByteDance came under the scrutiny of CFIUS because its 2017 acquisition of Musical.ly directly led to TikTok. Although a Chinese company, Musical.ly had enough of a presence and business in the US to fall under CFIUS's jurisdiction.

ByteDance also has lots of data on US residents — tens of millions of them use TikTok. When it completed its acquisition of Musical.ly, that kind of control, particularly when held by a Chinese company, was increasingly drawing the attention of those focused on US national security.

CFIUS has a history of blocking Chinese deals involving data

In 2017, CFIUS forced mobile marketing firm AppLovin to abandon plans to sell a majority stake to Chinese-based Orient Hontai Capital. The following year, it blocked Chinese internet giant Ant Financial's acquisition of money transfer company MoneyGram. 

"Data has become a big national security concern," said Allan Grauberd, a partner at law firm Moses & Singer.

That concern was codified in 2018 when Congress updated the laws that underlie CFIUS. The update explicitly mandated that the group review any deals that companies holding the data of millions of Americans as well as those involving "critical" technology.

With that in mind, CFIUS last year forced a Chinese company to unwind its acquisition of dating app provider Grindr and another to undo its taking of a majority stake in health-tech startup PatientsLikeMe.

In other words, while the amount of media attention the TikTok situation has gotten is unusual, the scrutiny from CFIUS isn't. Instead, it's part of a trend, said Caroline Brown, a partner at law firm Crowell & Moring.

Even before scrutinizing the TikTok situation, CFIUS has been been focusing "on the extent that information can be collected in vast quantities and the corresponding ability for foreign actors to manipulate that information," Brown said.

CFIUS's regulation has given something of a pass to deals that involve UK, Australian, or Canadian companies taking a non-controlling stake in US firms, Grauberd said. In theory, that means deals involving companies from all other countries should be looked at with equally close scrutiny, he said. In reality, though, CFIUS is paying extra attention  and looking much less favorably on deals involving Chinese companies, he said.

"There's definitely a harsher look at Chinese acquisitions, Chinese investments," Grauberd said.

The scrutiny on data and technology is going global

And that scrutiny isn't likely to go away, particularly now that data is officially a concern of CFIUS and China has become widely recognized as geopolitical rival and potential threat by policymakers across the aisle.

"The overall signal [is] that CFIUS is going to continue to heavily scrutinize Chinese ownership," Brown said.

But the TikTok situation may be a sign of another trend. Last month, the Chinese government put in place its own restrictions on the transfer of technology out the country. The move was widely seen as its effort to disrupt the Trump administrations effort to force ByteDance to sell TikTok. As a result, ByteDance was kind of caught in the middle between conflicting demands between the Chinese and American governments.

It's likely not going to be the last company in that position as countries around the world start to pay closer attention to who controls their citizens' data, the trade experts said. Already, the UK is developing its own system to review foreign investments in and acquisitions of its companies for national security concerns, including when they involve the transfer of control of intellectual property.

The EU, meanwhile, has been wrestling with how to control Facebook and Google and the enormous amounts of data they collect on European citizens, Lewis said.

In 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton act, which attempted to block foreign companies from doing business with Cuba. In response, European and other countries put in place measures that forbade their corporations from obeying the US law. Many companies found themselves caught in between those dictates, said Amy Deen Westbrook, a professor of international and commercial law at Washburn University School of Law. To Westbrook, the TikTok situation is reminiscent of that period.

"I think we're going to see that more and more now," she said. "I think we're going to see a lot of businesses caught either in the Atlantic or the Pacific or both, in the middle of the battle."

Got a tip about tech? Contact Troy Wolverton via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

• Read more about the Trump administration's review of TikTok:
• The Treasury Dept. has reportedly reached a deal for Oracle, Walmart, and other US investors to take a majority stake in TikTok
• Oracle, TikTok, and the Trump administration have reportedly 'tentatively' reached a deal. Here's everything we know about the partnership that could save TikTok from Trump's threats of a US ban.
• Trump's attack on TikTok is setting off alarm bells in Silicon Valley
• Trump's TikTok attack shows the surprisingly vast power of a decades-old government group that can kill or unwind deals even if none of the companies are American

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Getting a coronavirus vaccine is the hottest thing right now. At least, that's the impression you might get from dating apps, where people are mentioning they've got their shot as a way to meet like-minded people. 

"We have seen a 137% increase in mentions of "vaccine" on our profiles [globally] between November and January," Michael Kaye, a spokesperson from dating app OKCupid, told Insider. 

Tinder said it has seen a 258% increase in profile mentions of vaccines between September and December, Tyla reported. 

Bumble, another dating app, told Insider it had seen an increase in the number of people with the word "vaccine" or "vaccinated" in their Bumble profiles but did not elaborate. Dating app Grindr told Insider it did not collect data about COVID-19 vaccines. 

"Not only is the vaccine becoming the biggest talking point on dating apps, it's actually becoming a huge deal-breaker," Kaye said.

Sarah Kelly, a journalist who hadn't had a COVID-19 vaccine yet, tweeted January 31 that a man wrote to her on a dating app: "Ur real cool however I found someone who is also Vaccinated!!"

OKCupid includes a set of "matching questions" that users can voluntarily answer. The questions ask whether they would get vaccinated and whether they would cancel a date if a match wouldn't get a shot. This then appears on their profile for potential suitors to see. The questions have been answered more than 17 millions times.

Kaye said people who answered that they would get a COVID-19 shot got more "likes" than those who said no. He said 40% of Millennial and Gen Z-aged OKCupid users would cancel a date with someone who wouldn't take a vaccine. The figure was 18% higher for women compared with men. Most OKCupid daters are straight, but LGBTQ + people use the platform too. 

So far, more than 212 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered across 90 countries, according to Johns Hopkins University. Most countries have prioritized those at highest risk of severe COVID-19 disease, namely older people who are less likely to be using OKCupid, Tinder, Grindr or Bumble. But key workers like health professionals and those with certain medical conditions have also been top of the priority list in some countries. 

Some younger people in the US have been able to get a shot by queuing up outside pharmacies for leftover doses. Vaccine trial participants are another group of younger people who have been able to get a shot before others.

'Fraught with dangers'

Dr. Nilufar Ahmed, a lecturer in Social Sciences at the University of Bristol, told Insider in a statement that the area was "fraught with dangers." Meeting someone who was vaccinated does not reduce the risk of catching coronavirus or stop you from passing it on, she said.  

Dr. Veronica Lamarche, a relationships expert from the Department of Psychology at the University of Essex, didn't think that it would necessarily open the "floodgates" for risky behavior, because often people who were conscientious enough to engage in protective health practices, were also more likely to be conscientious in other ways too.

"It will probably increase the likelihood that people feel safe to interact with other people because they've been vaccinated," she said. "And then it's really a question of vaccine efficacy at that point, whether or not it's increasing their risks."

'Health disclosure nightmare'

Dating apps do not routinely verify whether someone has been immunized or not. In the US, dating apps would not be HIPAA-compliant if they shared health information. 

Lamarche said daters could lie about their immunization status, and people might engage in dates that aren't as safe as they expected. But she said that if health-based questions were compulsory and apps had to verify the details, you would get into a "health disclosure nightmare".

"I think that is something that goes beyond just the simple question of the pandemic and something that needs to be considered in terms of the morality behind being forced to disclose these different types of health information," she said.

Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor at Warwick University, told Insider that what it means to be "vaccinated" was unclear, and including all the relevant information in a short bio on a dating profile could be a challenge.

"There's a whole issue about how many doses of the vaccine you get, because you do need two doses for most of these vaccines," he said. 

Young said that for him it was "a slippery slope."

"Clearly people are at liberty to declare anything they wish to declare. But I do wonder about where you draw the line," he said.  "Do they say actually I've had a papilloma virus vaccine for instance, because that's linked with cervical cancer and head and neck cancer."

"Are you going to start mentioning other aspects of your health?" Young added. "Do you need to start doing DNA tests to see if you're at increased susceptibility to various diseases?

'Winning the war on the virus'

"I guess from a public health perspective, dating apps could help win the war on the virus, because people will go: if I want to date somebody, then I better be vaccinated," Ivo Vlaev, professor of behavioural science at Warwick Business School, told Insider. 

Young said most young people usually don't get severe disease, but could end up with long-term complications of COVID-19 if they catch coronavirus, so it was important to protect as many people as possible with vaccinations.

Vlaev said all policy decisions impact our private lives. "The more governments and other organizations require vaccination status, the more we are going to require from each other," he said. 

"There aren't any hard or written rules about how to date. So I think it's interesting that we're seeing that people put this information on their profile and that's a way of signaling what the social norm is," Lamarche said.  

Kaye said a really positive impact of the pandemic was that people are talking more about important sexual health issues on their dating profiles, for example, whether they had been tested for sexually transmitted infections.

Lamarche said it could backfire, though, if some people say publicly that they haven't been vaccinated or won't get immunized. 

"This could start to set a different set of norms and expectations, and disagreement on what is typical or what you should be doing if you want to get a partner," Larmarche said. "You might see a counter-movement emerge."

Lamarche said that generally it was a positive trend, especially to motivate younger groups who might feel disincentivized to get vaccines if they feel that COVID-19 is less of a factor in their lives.

"By and large, the benefits probably outweigh the negatives," she said.

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Grindr is selling a majority stake to a Chines gaming company.

The popular gay hookup and dating app has announced that the Beijing Kunlun Tech Company is buying 60% of the company, according to multiple news reports.

The deal values Grindr at $155 million (£107 million). The other 40% is split between Joel Simkhai, founder and CEO, and company employees who have equity.

Why sell? Grindr's COO, Carter, McJunkin, told The New York Times that it was about growing the business. "We have users in every country in the world, but in order to get to the next phase of our business and grow faster, we needed a partner."

Looking forward, the company is going to attempt "solving more problems" for its users. "We've expanded to make it more of a lifestyle company," said McJunkin.

Meanwhile, it sounds like there may be more acquisitions on the horizon for Beijing Kunlun as it builds its portfolio. In a statement, chairman Yahui Zhou said: "We will continue to seek out and invest in high-quality technology companies led by top-tier management across the globe."

We got a look at Grindr's financials last year thanks to the hack of extra-marital affairs dating site Ashley Madison. At one point Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, considered investing in or acquiring Grindr (though ultimately decided not to due to the price tag), and ex-CEO Noel Biderman's leaked emails contained a slide deck prepared by Grindr.

The company has grown healthily over the last few years with revenues rising to $31.8 million (£22 million) in 2014, up from $15.8 million (£11 million) in 2012, with estimated revenues of $38.1 million (£26 million) in 2015. (The slide deck was prepared in June 2015.)

By the end of 2018, it predicted annual revenues of as much as $77 million (£53 million) — more than twice that of 2014.

By a considerable margin, its single biggest audience is USA, with just under 1.3 million monthly active users (MAUs). This is followed by the UK (377,000), Brazil (248,000), and France (185,000). Overall, it has 10.5 million global users, of which 3.8 million are monthly active users (MAUs). MAUs were forecast to grow by more than 40% in 2015.

Notably, Grindr claimed that the average daily time its users spend on the app is higher than other social networks. It claims 54 minutes daily, compared to Facebook's 42.1 minutes, Tumblr's 34.2 minutes, and Instagram's 21.2 minutes. For Tinder, a dating app with similar functionality which also has heterosexual users, that figure is pegged at just 14.9 minutes daily. (The data came via a report from eMarketer.)

Grindr has not previously taken outside funding.

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• Grindr has reportedly laid off staffers at its LGBT publication INTO, saying the company will pivot to video.
• The decision follows numerous controversies at the publication, including a dispute between editorial staffers and Grindr's CEO, who INTO reported made comments against gay marriage.
• Grindr's pivot to video and its layoffs follow in the footsteps previous digital media companies that pursued the strategy such as Mic.

Grindr, the LGBT dating app, has reportedly laid off editorial staffers of its digital publication INTO on Tuesday, in what it's describing as a pivot to video. The move follows a series of editorial controversies that included retracted articles and a conflict between editorial staff and Grindr executives.

"Grindr is not shutting down INTO," a Grindr representative said over email. "INTO's brand and the site will continue. We are shifting our focus to video content."

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