this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
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I'm all for groups of safe spaces for women. Especially when it's designed to keep them safe while dating. I have my doubts that Tea was that. Even if it was advertised as such, "tea" is slang for the word gossip. I've heard stories from several sources that it was used to dox people as well. Not saying what happened to the users is right. I think some users here are just feeling smug that this might cause the app to fail or shut down.
Yeah, naming it "Tea" is really the cherry on top. I'd love to know more about the people behind this. It's hard to believe that anybody would be this oblivious. I guess the same kind of people who wouldn't secure their database.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/25/us/tea-app-dating-privacy-cec
It's a bit like Rate My Professor, but for dating.
Honestly I cyncially expect this kind of app might inevitably exist for rating people of all genders (or that dating apps might incorporate this Uber-style rating system), but the reason this app exists has directly to do with the violence women face from intimate partners.
The point is that men who are enjoying the doxxing of women who have used this app are ignoring the context, or even have a warped sense of the context, as if this is narrowly about (legitimate) privacy concerns and the harms caused by the app.
Even if the concerns about the app are justified, the revenge enjoyment betrays a view much harder to defend, that all the women who used the app are equally cupable, or that doxxing women using the app is equivalent to women doxxing abusive men through the app.
Men are not all equally privileged, but there is a broad inequality both to how violence is distributed and how that plays out in dating situations. Women are not wrong to fear men. One in three women have experienced sexual or physical violence, most of that violence being perpetuated by men.
Since this is the context for the use of this app, it's not neutral to doxx its users or to claim it's fair because men feel (legitimate) concerns about the app's privacy violations.
I agree 100% that women face many more dangers especially in the dating scene than men. I'm all for having resources available for them to remain as safe as possible.
I don't see how a Rate My Professor type app would work well for dates. I feel like people would only spend the time to rate poor dates. If you had a really good date with someone, you would presumably start dating them so why would you let everyone else know they are a good person to go out with? I have no doubt there are some awful people out there that others should be warned about, but this type of app is a bit too risky to justify that in my opinion.
The background check feature sounds much more legit, but I don't think a group chat feature needs to exist along side it.
All that being said, anyone enjoying the doxxing of others is just an asshole. There's definitely nothing fair about it from either side.
yeah, the app has obvious flaws, and the Rate My Professor style approach succeeds or fails depending on the quality of the users and moderators, and could easily be useless or become toxic - either way, I'm not defending this aspect of the app, it's clearly problematic.
Regardless I understand why women would want a resource like this, and that doesn't seem true for those in the comments who see the doxxing as deserved for using this app.
Nevermind the rest of the context, like 4chan being a bastion of right-wing, misogynist trolls who would target an app like this for political reasons.
Lemmy users approving 4chan doxxing women is a major red flag ... it might have something to do with how many Lemmy users come here due to being banned for their behavior on Reddit. Reddit isn't sending their best and brightest, and it shows. (This is just my speculation, though.)
Could you share said sources? It's irrelevant though because justifying this doxxing SHOULD mean that the entirety of 4chan is a justifiable dox target. If you don't believe that, then you should be against it happening against Tea users. They're at the very least guilty of the same thing (in this case. 4chan is guilty of much more heinous things than just this).
I 100% agree that it isn't relevant to the doxxing. I dont think the doxxing is warranted at all from either side. Most of what I saw about the app is just from various social media users as well as the Google PlayStore reviews. Personally I find it hard to believe the app wasn't made with the purpose to dox people just based on the name alone. The ads make it seem like a safespace for women and if that's all it was meant to be then it for sure had a very unfortunate name.
What does the name have to do with doxing? I know "tea" is slang for "gossip", but gossip ain't doxing.
A group of people with the intention of privately sharing details of people in order to track their behavior is definitely going to lead to doxxing. Maybe I'm getting the wrong idea, but it sounds like they are sharing the names of people they went on dates with. I assume that would include the city or town the date occurred which would infer where abouts they live. Given enough "reviews" of a single person I'm sure there would be sufficient info to call it doxxing.