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Monday Mini: What's Going on With the Tea Dating App? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. Welcome stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I never told you. Production of iHeartRadio and our Monday
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: mini of Today is kind of current. So as we're recording,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: it is August seventh, twenty twenty five, and we have
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: done a lot of past episodes that are related to this,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: especially around online dating and the bumble fumble, perhaps specifically
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: quick content warning, we're going to be touching on sexual assault,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: but nothing too in depth. But okay, we are talking
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: about what is going on with the dating advice app
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  Speaker 2: called Tea, and it's ongoing, so that's why I put
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: in the date. So Tea Dating Advice is an app
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  Speaker 2: that became available in twenty twenty three, but really skyrocketed
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  Speaker 2: in July two five. It became the most downloaded free
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  Speaker 2: app in the App Store. At its most basic, it
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  Speaker 2: is an app that is only for women. More on
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  Speaker 2: that later, and a place where women can post about
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  Speaker 2: potential bad dates or bad dates that they have been
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  Speaker 2: on already with men. It is similar to things we've
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  Speaker 2: talked about before about like Facebook pages dedicated to exposing
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  Speaker 2: cheating men. The company calls it a quote dating safety tool,
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  Speaker 2: and the app promised to donate ten percent of its
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  Speaker 2: revenue to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. So essentially, yes,
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  Speaker 2: it was women spilling tea on bad actor men in
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  Speaker 2: the dating scene in a very heteronormative sense. The app
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  Speaker 2: uses AI data from selfies to ensure that the users
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  Speaker 2: are women. Once that's verified, the users can post pictures
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  Speaker 2: of men, typically from other dating sites, apps, or social
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  Speaker 2: media platforms. The app then puts the photos through background checks,
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  Speaker 2: runs them against databases on public sex offenders, and also
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  Speaker 2: checks per signs of catfishing. It has a chat function
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  Speaker 2: and green flag red flag rating system. Okay, so we're
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  Speaker 2: going to get into this, but the app raised a
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  Speaker 2: lot of questions about legality and it made a lot
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  Speaker 2: of men angry when it comes.
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  Speaker 1: To legal issues.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously not a lawyer, but here are here's a rundown
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  Speaker 2: because there are a lot of legal questions about an
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  Speaker 2: app that includes pictures and other information that people themselves
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  Speaker 2: didn't post on it. However, in the digital landscape we
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  Speaker 2: live in, if you posted a picture on Instagram, for instance,
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  Speaker 2: it's sort of a fair game. Even if you didn't
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  Speaker 2: consent to it being posted on Team it's still your picture.
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  Speaker 2: You own it, but you gave the platform the right
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  Speaker 2: to distribute it. That makes it tricky to use this
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  Speaker 2: argument as a legal defense, like I didn't put it
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  Speaker 2: up there, it shouldn't be there.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of out there.
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  Speaker 2: On top of that, someone may have posted a photo
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: of you that you're in that you don't know really
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  Speaker 2: control that. Another piece of this are like legal arguments
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  Speaker 2: around defamation, which is fairly complicated. The basic definition of
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: defamation is when someone puts out false information that damages
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  Speaker 2: someone's reputation and they do it knowingly. There are a
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  Speaker 2: couple of other stipulations. It has to be made public
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  Speaker 2: to at least one person, has to be presented as
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  Speaker 2: fact even though it's untrue as opposed to opinion. The
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  Speaker 2: person behind the statement must be at fault, and the
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  Speaker 2: result of the whole thing was financial or emotional distress.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Oh I say it that way because a certain current
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  Speaker 2: president use this argument even though everyone was like, you
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  Speaker 2: should not have been able to but okay, As you
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  Speaker 2: can imagine, in a lot of ways, this can be
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  Speaker 2: difficult to prove in court if you're not the president
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  Speaker 2: in this case, though generally these women are expressing their opinions,
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  Speaker 2: not as facts, and that's not defamation. Intent to harm
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  Speaker 2: is difficult to prove in this case too, because the
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: women could argue that they're trying to protect others from
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  Speaker 2: men's bad behavior. Some things are legally protected, like social
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: security numbers or medical or financial information. It's a bit
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: more complicated than that, but that's a separate episode. On
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  Speaker 2: top of this, dosing or sharing personal information, including addresses,
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  Speaker 2: with intent to cause fear, harassment, or harm is illegal
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  Speaker 2: in many states. Well it is enforced.
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  Speaker 1: One thing, but it is illegal.
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  Speaker 2: There are also a couple of anti cyberstocking laws that
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  Speaker 2: can come into play, but they're inconsistent or we're having
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  Speaker 2: this conversation other issues a lot of this whole thing.
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  Speaker 2: It reminds me of our self defense episode we did
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  Speaker 2: about women paying for self defense classes to protect themselves
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  Speaker 2: from sexual assaults when you know, ideally we would be
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  Speaker 2: addressing the root issue.
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  Speaker 1: Of the sexual assault.
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  Speaker 2: We have so much data and much of it is
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  Speaker 2: underreported about the statistic around violence against women and in
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  Speaker 2: terms of an intimate partner even specifically and dating and
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  Speaker 2: online dating, and they are not good. We've talked before
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  Speaker 2: about how we had systems as women for going on dates,
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  Speaker 2: like you would tell your friends where you were going.
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  Speaker 1: You might have a friend. I know you had one,
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  Speaker 1: like sitting in the corner, like behind me, behind you,
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  Speaker 1: Like we have these plans to go on dates. We
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  Speaker 1: have these safety procedures.
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  Speaker 2: And the reason the app grew in popularity was it
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  Speaker 2: was when a lot of women started sharing that they
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  Speaker 2: learned about domestic or sexual violence and potential dates that
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  Speaker 2: they'd had in the past. A recent study out of
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  Speaker 2: the US and Australia found that ten percent of reported
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  Speaker 2: rapes can be traced to dating apps. Most of the
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  Speaker 2: victims are women, again, very underreported, Yet there are no
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  Speaker 2: allowed calls to shut those apps down these other dating apps,
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  Speaker 2: like there were from men about Tea they were mad. Also,
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  Speaker 2: plenty of other apps are coming out with safety functions.
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  Speaker 2: I know Uber just released their like request a woman
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  Speaker 2: driver function, which I have mixed feelings about because I've
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  Speaker 2: also gotten in a car. I didn't request it, but
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't the woman. At the picture of the driver,
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  Speaker 2: it was a bad and he was like, oh, no,
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  Speaker 2: it's my wife and she's sick. And I was like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: that's scary, okay, So I can see that being an
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  Speaker 2: issue of this whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: And then you know.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure some of you are asking, like, how do
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  Speaker 2: we use AI to confirm someone's gender these days? We've
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  Speaker 2: also talked about documented racism and facial recognition software, so
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  Speaker 2: does that play into this whole thing? And some men
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  Speaker 2: have reported getting past it. I don't know that it
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  Speaker 2: was ever like proven that they did or if they
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  Speaker 2: were just saying that, but some men have said.
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  Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I got pasted it.
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  Speaker 2: There's also the whole conversation about vigilante justice and the
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  Speaker 2: digital age and targeting the wrong people. So I know it,
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  Speaker 2: and at least one case, like somebody got piled on
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  Speaker 2: and it was not the person in question that they
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  Speaker 2: went for the wrong person, which happens in all kinds
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  Speaker 2: of online spaces. There's also the conversation about people with
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  Speaker 2: criminal records not being worth love because you know, people
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  Speaker 2: can change, and also we don't know what they did,
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  Speaker 2: you might not get that information. The app's founder, Sean Cook,
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  Speaker 2: reportedly created this app after watching his mom get catfished
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  Speaker 2: and dating people with criminal records, and this seems to
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  Speaker 2: suggest he thinks only men can do this, which is
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  Speaker 2: not true. While yes, we do have statistics that show
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  Speaker 2: women are more at risk. It's not great to not
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  Speaker 2: acknowledge women can be perpetrators as well. And yes, I
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  Speaker 2: did get a little hung up on the creator. The
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  Speaker 2: founder is a man.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, it's a pretty hetsis app, using slang
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  Speaker 1: from the black drag community as well. Expelling the tea
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  Speaker 1: is sort of there, so that's kind of a thing.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, as I said, men have claimed that they've
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  Speaker 1: gotten past the verification system by posting self pies of
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  Speaker 1: women or AI generated images of themselves as women. It's
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  Speaker 1: true that the chat option can sometimes lead to like
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  Speaker 1: mean spirited commentary, including on men's looks, and that sucks,
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  Speaker 1: but that's just been like existing online for women forever.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm sort of if you're mad about that, let's
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  Speaker 1: work on changing the whole thing, right, Yeah, And then
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  Speaker 1: there's the promising young men argument had to pop up. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: it could ruin a man's life, so it should be illegal.
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  Speaker 1: People were more angry about that than the reality of
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  Speaker 1: what women face.
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  Speaker 2: Eh. And then there is the safety of the data,
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  Speaker 2: which the app did promise is going to be safe.
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  Speaker 1: Is it safe to use this app? So?
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  Speaker 2: On July twenty fifth, twenty twenty five, users at four
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  Speaker 2: chan which is pretty famously misogynistic, breached Tea's database, including users' IDs,
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  Speaker 2: their driver's licenses and stuff like that and other information.
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  Speaker 2: They also claimed to make a map of t user's
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  Speaker 2: locations and were generally celebratory douchebags about it. Interestingly, they
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  Speaker 2: were screaming that the app encouraged doxing, so they doxed
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  Speaker 2: the users. This is like such a sadly ironic. They
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  Speaker 2: proved why it exists, they like they were mad it
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  Speaker 2: was there, and then proved why it was anyway.
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  Speaker 1: Then there was a second.
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  Speaker 2: Breach, revealing users dms around things like cheating and abortion,
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  Speaker 2: which is unfortunately dangerous information in our current timeline. But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: like I said, it's sad because it reinforces the issue
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  Speaker 2: that t was attempting to address. Like, these men got
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  Speaker 2: so angry that they docked all these women and put
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  Speaker 2: them in danger, which is why they went to Tea,
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  Speaker 2: not to feel that. Plenty of women did report feeling
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  Speaker 2: even less safe after, you know, obviously after their data
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  Speaker 2: had been breached, or even if it hadn't, which makes
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  Speaker 2: complete sense. But it is clear that the popularity of
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  Speaker 2: Tea signals that women want a safer dating app. And
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  Speaker 2: I desperately want that too, because every time my friends
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  Speaker 2: tell me about experiences they've had on those apps, I'm
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  Speaker 2: just horrified and I'm like, I don't understand how this
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  Speaker 2: is even worth it?
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and the same age, why are you cheating?
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  Speaker 1: Just break up or why are you murdering? Just just
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  Speaker 1: get diforced?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah thinks fine, yeah, heavy sigh, heavy sigh. But as
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  Speaker 2: I said, this is an ongoing thing. There's still a
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  Speaker 2: lot happening, So listeners, if you know more about this,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: if you were involved anyway, and you don't mind sharing
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: with us, please let us know. You can email us
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: at Hello at Stuffwenever told You dot com. You can
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: find us on blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I Never Told You.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: We also on YouTube and we have a buck you
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: to a super're just Christina or executive puer My and
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: the contributor Joey.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you, and.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: inspection by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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