Grindr removes race filter on dating app in response to Black Lives Matter movement
The popular gay-dating app Grindr says it will remove the racial and ethnic filter in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“We will not be silent, and we will not be inactive,” Grindr said Monday in posts on Twitter and Instagram. “We will continue to fight racism on Grindr, both through dialogue with our community and a zero-tolerance policy for racism and hate speech on our platform. As part of this commitment, and based on your feedback, we have decided to remove the ethnicity filter from our next release.”
Grindr’s response was in reference to the racial unrest following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died on May 25 while in custody of Minneapolis police.
The social media reaction was uneven. While some applauded the move, most weren’t satisfied and said that the filter shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
“The ethnicity filters have been controversial for years, but they went unchanged even as Grindr launched an anti-racism campaign on the platform in 2018,” the Verge reported. During that year, Grindr’s former head of communications, Lauden Zumwalt, spoke to The Guardian and said that while the company had discussed removing the filters, they weren’t ready to do so.
“While I believe the ethnicity filter does promote racist behavior in the app, other minority groups use the filter because they want to quickly find other members of their minority community,” Zumwalt said.
There were some people who applauded the move and focused on the fact that Grindr was changing and thanked them for it.
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 11:54 AM with the headline "Grindr removes race filter on dating app in response to Black Lives Matter movement."