Grindr restricts location options on the Beijing Olympic Village | Engadget

Grindr is tightening privateness controls for the Olympic Village in Beijing. Bloomberg has learned the homosexual courting app is obstructing individuals outdoors the Village from utilizing the location-based Explore function to seek out athletes in or close to the world. The transfer is supposed to guard athletes from harassment or persecution to allow them to “feel confident” connecting with one another in the course of the Winter Olympic Games, Grindr for Equality director Jack Harrison-Quintana stated.

Anyone who makes use of Grindr contained in the Village will see a pop-up telling them individuals outdoors the world cannot browse the locale utilizing Explore. “Your privacy is important to us,” Grindr says within the alert. This is the primary time Grindr has supplied such a discover.

Previously, Grindr customers anyplace might discover Olympians via Explore. The openness created a major problem for athletes from international locations that both criminalize LGBTQ sexuality or have sturdy cultural prejudices in opposition to it. The challenge is extra than simply hypothetical — Insider notes TikTok and Twitter customers discovered quite a few athlete courting profiles in the course of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and an American information web site retracted an article that discovered LGBTQ athletes in the course of the 2016 summer time video games in Rio de Janeiro.

The potential for abuse was already barely restricted after Grindr pulled its shopper from Apple’s App Store in China attributable to issues about cross-border knowledge rules (the app itself stays practical). If all goes properly, although, the measure will let homosexual athletes join in the course of the Beijing Olympics with out fearing what occurs once they return dwelling.