(Bloomberg) — Grindr, the gay hookup app, has adjusted its privacy settings for the Beijing Olympics Village, a move it says is designed to protect the world’s top athletes from persecution or harassment.
People in or near the Olympic Village will be able to use Grindr to find each other during the games, but in a change from past Olympics, their profiles won’t be visible worldwide.
“We want Grindr to be a space where all queer athletes, regardless of where they’re from, feel confident connecting with one another while they’re in the Olympic Village,” said Jack Harrison-Quintana, director of Grindr for Equality, a department of the company.
Ordinarily, Grindr users anywhere could use the “Explore” function to find Olympics participants using the app, and during past games, people from outside used the feature to out athletes on social media and, in one case, in a mainstream American news outlet.
It’s the first time the company has done this for an Olympic games, though Grindr has disabled the “Explore” function for certain countries and regions where being gay is illegal or considered risky. China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997, but there’s little protection for LGBTQ people or recognition of queer communities.
During the 2022 Olympics, Grindr users in and near the Olympic bubble will receive an on-screen alert that says: “Your privacy is important to us. Our Explore feature has been disabled in the Olympic Village so that people outside your immediate area can’t browse here.” It’s still possible to find users “nearby” or searching recently added profiles.
In 2020, the Chinese owner of Grindr, Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., sold the app to investors for about $600 million, after U.S. regulators required the divestment on national security grounds. Last week Grindr removed its app from Apple Inc.’s App Store, in China, citing difficulties keeping it in compliance with the country’s Personal Information Protection Law.
Headquartered in Los Angeles, Grindr says it has more than 10 million users globally.
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