If you’re a single woman who wants a safer dating life, there’s an app for that, apparently. However, the sudden popularity of the Tea Dating Advice app has caused quite a stir in the online realm.
The app, launched in 2023, is designed only for women who are involved in online dating. It allows women to share information on men who other women might be interested in. Users can upload photos of men they are currently dating, or might be considering a relationship with, to get feedback from other users who may have encountered the men.
Users can label various men with “green flag,” a positive designation, or a “red flag,” which suggests they might be trouble. The red flag is ostensibly aimed at helping women avoid men who are abusive or who are not faithful. However, critics suggest the app has been used more to gossip about certain men than to keep women safe.
The app also offers public record checks and image searches to verify the identity of the man they are dealing with. Users can also participate in anonymous discussions about their experiences with the men being discussed. They can share advice or warnings.
After the app went viral on platforms such as TikTok and Reddit, it garnered about two million new users. This is when it became the target of an online campaign in which men on 4chan doxxed its users, leaking over 70,000 verification photos and government IDs the app uses to ensure that its users are women.
“Posters across social-media platforms had a field day sharing users’ images, calling them ‘whales’ and ‘ugly b*tches,’” men posted according to The Atlantic.
Then, a second wave of hacking exposed private messages, phone numbers, and social media handles. A representative from the company told reporters that the hackers accessed private messages, which prompted the app to shut down its messaging system.
“Tea is hardly a perfect app. As its name suggests, it allows not only serious warnings about men but also gossip about their supposed defects and romantic tendencies,” The Atlantic noted. “When Tea users do make serious allegations of predatory behavior, those accusations go unconfirmed, a glaring failure of due process.”
Even further, since men cannot join the app, women can share gossip and false allegations about them without the men being able to defend themselves. It also attacks their privacy, with women being allowed to share personal details about them in private chats.
What is also noteworthy is that despite the company’s promise to delete verification photos immediately, it actually stored them in a way that made it easy for hackers to access them.
Helping women avoid evil men is a good service. Most sane people would agree that preventing predators from targeting women is a great idea. When women can warn other women about genuine threats, it can help them better protect themselves.
But this app clearly has serious issues.
It’s already bad enough that women — and men — can use social media to unfairly smear those they had negative dating experiences with. But an app that allows the gossiper to remain anonymous while actively preventing their targets from defending themselves is only making the situation much worse.
In the digital age, social media platforms have created an environment where an individual can say pretty much anything about anyone without being fact-checked. We already have enough of this in the political world — do we really need it when it comes to dating and relationships?
We have also seen how false allegations of rape and other types of horrible behavior can ruin a man’s life — even if it does not involve law enforcement. This app makes it incredibly easier for women with ill intentions to anonymously accuse someone of these crimes without providing even a modicum of evidence. For single men, this could destroy their chances of finding a suitable mate.
It’s also worth noting that if such an app had been created for men to give feedback on women, it would ignite a Mt. Vesuvius level of controversy coming from left-leaning folks who would immediately accuse it of perpetuating misogyny, would it not? Legacy media would attack any man who used such an app to do the same thing that Tea Dating Advice allows women to do.
The folks who created the app might have had good intentions. After all, who doesn’t want to protect women from predators? Unfortunately, this is not the way. Yes, women deserve to be protected — but so do men. This is where the Tea Dating Advice app falls short.
