Grindr Beefs Up Privacy Settings To Keep Beijing Winter Olympians Safe

Grindr, which brands itself as the world’s largest networking app for gay, bisexual, transexual, and queer people, has made changes to its privacy settings in Beijing’s Olympic Villages, in a move to protect athletes from persecution. 

According to Bloomberg, although people living in or around the Olympic Village will still be able to access Grindr, the location of their profiles will now be hidden as opposed to being left visible worldwide under an ‘Explore’ section.

“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-Guintana, Director of Grindr for Equality. 

During the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, athletes’ identities had been leaked online due to the app’s ‘Explore’ feature, which could have potentially caused harm to those from nations where LGBTQ+ people are less accepted.

As per Outsports, this year’s Winter Olympics sees the highest number of openly LGBTQ+ athletes competing, with at least 36 of them present, including the first nonbinary Olympian, USA’s Timothy LeDuc.

For the duration of the competition, athletes using Grindr will see an on-screen notification alerting them of the privacy changes.

“Your privacy is important to us. Our Explore feature has been disabled in the Olympic Village so that people outside of your immediate area can’t browse here,” the message said.

[via Bloomberg and Insider, cover image via lazyllama / Shutterstock.com]