TikTok and Twitter removed videos exposing gay athletes on dating apps in Tokyo's Olympic Village
- TikTok and Twitter removed videos that exposed gay Olympians using the dating app Grindr.
- An Insider article found creators using Grindr's "explore" feature to find gay athletes.
- The videos risked outing athletes, potentially putting some in danger.
TikTok and Twitter removed several videos from their platforms that exposed gay Olympians in Tokyo using the dating app Grindr.
An Insider article published Tuesday revealed multiple videos on the platforms, some with thousands of views, that showed creators using Grindr's "explore" feature to find profiles of users in Tokyo's Olympic Village. In the videos, made to gawk over the Olympians' bodies, creators scrolled through various profiles, where some users showed their full faces and gave identifying details. Some of the athletes identified themselves as being from countries known for anti-LGBTQ politics.
On Tuesday, Twitter said the videos violated their hateful conduct policy and said it was taking steps to remove them. At least one video remained up at press time.
On Wednesday, TikTok said it had removed the videos from its platform because they violated its community guidelines. A search of similar videos on the platform yielded no results.
The videos risked outing some athletes as gay and posed a potential threat to Olympians from countries where homosexuality is still outlawed.
In a statement to Insider, Grindr condemned the creators who made the videos, saying the video creators breached the app's Terms and Conditions, which "prohibit them from publicly displaying, publishing, or otherwise distributing any content or information that are part of the Grindr services."
"Out of respect for our users' privacy, and out of respect for the contractual commitments these individuals made, Grindr demands that these individuals remove their social media posts that include images from the Grindr platform," the statement said.