The AIDS Healthcare Foundation said Monday that it received a cease-and-desist letter from Tinder that claims the billboard falsely associates the dating app with venereal diseases.
“Both Tinder and Grindr’s response to our latest public service ad on STD awareness has been really tone deaf”, said Whitney Engeran-Cordova, AHF’s Public Health Division senior director for AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
Neither Tinder nor Grindr responded to request for comment, according to CBS Los Angeles. Grindr, a men-only dating app, also has beef with the foundation, but a far more polite beef.
A controversial new billboard in Los Angeles is raising alarm over the so-called “hookup” apps Tinder and Grindr, seemingly implicating them in the transmission of diseases.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is not backing down on its targeting of location based dating apps. They also mentioned a May report by the Rhode Island Department of Health that found cases of syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV shot up between 2013 and 2014.
This billboard might be a are the effect of a recently issued information on Vanity Fair, “Tinder and of course the Dawn of a given Dating Apocalypse”. Instead, it cited articles and studies showing the link between dating apps, casual sex and the increased incidences of STD. We expected that these businesses would be concerned about the sexual health of their customers, from whom they make millions. “Their priorities seem clear”. The billboard directs people to FreeSTDcheck.org, a project of the AHF. With each couple, one head has the superimposed name of one of the popular hook up apps, such as Tinder, while the facing head lists the name of a sexually transmitted disease, such as Chlamydia.
“These unprovoked and wholly unsubstantiated accusations are made to irreparably damage Tinder’s reputation in an attempt to encourage others to take an HIV test by your organization”, Tinder attorney Jonathan Reichman said in a letter to the foundation.
Tinder is the top Lifestyle app at the iOS and Google Play app stores. The billboards are also accusing the sites of promoting a hook up culture.
“In many ways, location-based mobile dating apps are becoming a digital bathhouse for millennials wherein the next sexual encounter can literally just be a few feet away-as well as the next STD”.