There are negative social effects and a division of women from men due to the constant narrative "women's feeling of safety" is more important than any harm to men, men's reputations, and men's right to privacy.
There is some middle ground here, though the media, politicians and others keep ranking one group above the other in importance, people who matter and government policies and laws.
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Opinion - Outrage over the Tea dating app highlights the indifference to women’s victimization - By Douglas Zytko - Aug 3, 2025
- fears that reputations, especially of young men, could be damaged by anonymous and potentially false allegations of sexual misconduct.
- Tea encourages doxxing (the unwanted release of personal information) and enables the spread of intentionally false and defamatory stories that can ruin men’s reputations
- Because Tea addresses an underserved safety need doesn’t mean it should be exempt from criticism or that false accusations against men should be an acceptable side effect.
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Is this even legal? Answers to every question about the Tea app drama - July 25, 2025 - Elliot Williams
- Tea is marketed as a “dating safety tool” for women
- a number of people expressed worry about the fairness and the legality of it all
- “The risk of abuse is insanely insanely high,”
- “It seems pretty socially deleterious if any human can have a social media profile they can’t view created for them without their consent or knowledge,”
- users can post photos of men. These are usually mined from social media profiles and other dating apps
- The app enables the photos to be run through a reverse image search
- check against public sex offender databases
- directly share information about men, and has a rating function, which allows users to share their experiences with Yelp-style reviews
What are the legal concerns?
- The inclusion of men’s names, identities, and other information
- the app enable users to violate others’ privacy rights
- the right to privacy covers the right to be free from intrusion into one’s personal affairs, the ability to control who has access to one’s personal information and the right to be free from unwarranted publicity
- it is almost always a clear violation of law to publicize someone’s Social Security Number
- There are healthcare laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, which sets national standards for when and how even medical offices can handle patients’ health information
- Specific privacy laws govern the disclosure of student records, financial information, personal data and a host of other information people generally want kept secured.
- the very act of enabling users to post photos of them online without their consent violates their privacy rights
- It is fair for people to be concerned about their images or likenesses published online
- When a user posts a photo to the internet or an app like Facebook or Instagram, he or she typically retains the rights to it (i.e., they still own it), but has granted the platform the right to distribute or display it in connection with the service
- Tea raises the bar by explicitly inviting criticism or negative attention based on the photo
- “I went on a date with this man and I honestly worry that he might be a sex offender?”
- a user could instead raise a copyright complaint if a photo they took and posted to a social media or dating platform gets posted by someone else to another, like Tea.
- Legally, defamation is the publication of false information that harms someone’s reputation.
- Generally, for a statement or act to be considered defamatory, the following elements must be present: the statement must be made public to at least one other person; the statement must be presented as a fact, not an opinion, and must be untrue; the person publishing the statement must be at fault, either by being aware that the statement is false or being reckless about it; and the statement or act must have caused some damage, whether financial or in the form of emotional distress.
- individuals on the app could personally face criminal exposure for truly extreme conduct
- several states have laws prohibiting “doxxing,” or releasing unauthorized personal information with an intent to harm or cause someone harassment
- New Jersey’s cyberharassment law, for example, makes it a crime to post obscene materials “with the intent to emotionally harm a reasonable person or place a reasonable person in fear of physical or emotional harm.”
- Arizona’s doxxing law makes it a crime to post an individual’s personal identifying information “for the purpose of imminently causing the person unwanted physical contact, injury, or harassment.”
- Men who have had the misfortune of appearing on Tea have valid concerns about the conduct it enables.
- 2023 data from the Pew Research Center found that women are more likely than men to say that dating apps feel unsafe.
