- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
Users from 4chan claim to have discovered an exposed database hosted on Google’s mobile app development platform, Firebase, belonging to the newly popular women’s dating safety app Tea. Users say they are rifling through peoples’ personal data and selfies uploaded to the app, and then posting that data online, according to screenshots, 4chan posts, and code reviewed by 404 Media.
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I can’t open the article, but I think I read that this was hosted on an unprotected bucket. Assuming that’s correct I wouldn’t say this was a breach. A better headline would be “Women dating safety app ‘Tea’ exposed women’s PII”.
To be 100% clear, I’m not excusing the hackers. I don’t believe it’s morally correct to publicize something because it is exposed. For folks curious about that you can look into how to ethically disclose vulnerabilities. I still view this as doxxing. I still believe what the hackers did should be a criminal offense, it’s just that I also believe the app holds a ton of the blame as well. How can you proclaim to be about keeping women safe while putting them at risk? That should be punished as well.
Like if the storage facility you trusted to hold your stuff never had locks on the doors, shouldn’t they take a lot of the blame as well as the thief who found out a door was unlocked?
They also said they deleted IDs once users were verified. The breach proved that to be an outright lie.
Criminal negligence.
Never upload PII to social media
Your privacy is not legally protected.
I would not under any circumstances give my drivers license to a for profit app. I don’t even like to give my email.
My friend came over and told me a story about this crazy date she was on. The guy love bombs her, sets her up with a massage, then in the morning, goes out and eats McDonalds alone and ghosts her. Then repeats every few weeks with love bombs.
I shared that with my discord group and someone said they know that guy too.
Im assuming that’s what Tea is for.
Wait what? How does one ghost and then repeat love bombing? Also why is eating breakfast alone remarkable? Tf is happening?
People sign up to app intended to share personal information about others without their permission, end up having their own personal information shared without permission - the irony is impressive.
I think it depends on people’s intent and purpose for using this service. I’m overall not a fan of someone taking and sharing pictures of me without my consent, or making claims that can’t be defended…
The group of women legitimately using it for safety is fine, in a general sense.
The group of women using it as gossip and entertainment is not.
Considering that “tea” is common slang for gossip I’m not convinced there was many of the
latterformer.
The replies in this thread are disturbing, giving me a sense that Lemmy has a misogyny problem; maybe I was naïve, but I expected outrage about 4chan doxxing women trying to protect one another, instead I see lots of revenge enjoyment as if being doxxed on 4chan is justice for … <checks notes> warning one another about dangerous men they encounter when dating?
The inability to empathize and take seriously the threats posed to women or to understand their motivation to protect one another is alarming.
There is no good faith extended, but also no evidence presented that instead of safety the app was just for gossip, it’s just taken as assumed that women are wrong for using Tea and they all deserve to be doxxed.
Your comment was on top for me in my app, so I was like “oh how bad could it be.”. Holy shit you’re not wrong, there’s some disgusting comments that are getting voted up.
I’m low-key disappointed and appalled by these community members who believe these women “deserve” it for … Trying to help each other be safer?
saw this happening here, saw it happening in reddit threads on the topic, saw it all over the media cycle in the comments.
i agree, people’s visceral backlash against this app is steeped in a deep misogyny. most of these comments have a vapid absence of any sort of even basic recognition towards these women as people. talking about them like they’re abstract figures or test subjects up in here.
watching people take somewhat valid privacy concerns as an excuse to let loose their most toxic feelings towards women used to be the sort of thing only losers or emboldened megalomaniacs did in public, even just a decade ago.
in the past years i’ve just seen all my peers, regardless of political affiliation, manipulated into a cult of outrage that serves as another hamster wheel upon which capital may spin.
imtiredboss.png
Let’s say a vile, manipulative, entitled woman went on a Tinder date with a guy. He insists on splitting the bill rather than paying for her food. She feels insulted.
She then takes to Tea and her local Are We Dating The Same Guy Facebook group, slanders him with false accusations that he tried to sexually assault her, then posts his Tinder, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn profiles online. Suddenly he’s being ostracized, receiving nasty messages and even loses his job from women bombarding his employer with negative phone calls, emails and comments about him.
Men have had their lives ruined by false allegations posted to AWDTSG communities before. But opposing the existence of these platforms is “misogyny”, apparently.
This is a strawman argument, though. Sure, that can and does happen, but it isn’t the existence of spaces like Tea that is problematic, it is the holistic relationship between men and women in our society, generally. Further, I’m clearly not saying opposing Tea is inherently misogyny. It is a very particular kind of reaction that I am talking about, and you know this.
Tea itself really isn’t any worse than any other forum. You could have the same thing happen to a man on other platforms, there is nothing unique about Tea in that capacity and it is disingenuous to levy that criticism against the platform in isolation. People dislike it because they have a weird caricature of women in their head and assume every person on this app must have been a gossip or an evil person, yet there is no real basis for that claim other than the fact the audience is mainly women. Hence, the “misogyny,” that you seem to not really have the prior life experience to see. You can look through my profile here. I’ve said plenty in support of men’s rights and men’s issues as well, I’m really not rabidly in coalition for a particular gender’s rights or anything. I’m just calling it as I see it and the reaction to Tea on the web is largely sexist.
No one said false accusations aren’t real or that opposing them makes you a misogynist. You’re being intentionally obtuse and conflating a critique of people’s treatment of women in public discourse with a critique of apps such as these generally to make it seem absurd to point out how sexist some of the reaction to Tea has been. Mostly because I think you saw the word “misogyny” thrown out and for some reason took it as a personal insult or something. I think most people would reflect upon that and I’d hope you would too.
I probably won’t further respond because I’m getting the idea honest discourse and dialectic isn’t your goal here.
I thought 4chan shut down permanently like 2 months ago?
Nah they came back online after like 2 weeks I think?
This is what happens when you decide to vibecode a service with zero attention to safety or web development. This is why you don’t immediately jump onto a new service without it being vetted properly. Now one of the worst communities on the Internet is in possession of over a hundred thousand women’s driving licenses and faces. This is going to be an absolute disaster.
This is ALSO why no service should ever require or get my driver’s license information. Fuck that. Also, yet another Constance to those who can’t afford a car or want to improve the environment by living car free.
Stay classy, 4chan. /facepalm
I can understand some people’s skepticism on how quickly an app like this can turn into a gossip and defamation tool, especially when those who might be defamed can’t access it… but god damn this isn’t how to show people that aspect of it.
Also, not to say I don’t see the value in apps like these: I absolutely do, they are there for women to protect themselves. I would suspect the number of women misusing it is in the minority and the majority use it appropriately.
Whereas a similar app for men? Those are almost instantly used for things like Revenge Porn. Men are not going to win this battle and prove they are better than women in this regard because the men who would misuse such an app are solidly in the majority. Basically the complete opposite. Events like this prove it.
Anyway, fuck 4chan misogynist freaks.
Men are not going to win this battle and prove they are better than women in this regard because the men who would misuse such an app are solidly in the majority.
I think there’s also a lot of confirmation bias, in the sense that you need to consider why people would seek out such an app. Why would women seek out a women-only app? And inversely, why would men seek out a men-only app? The answer to each will be fundamentally different, which means the user bases will be fundamentally different as well.
Basically, what types of women would go out of their way to engage with a women-only app? Chances are good that the average woman has probably had the thought before, and is doing so to try and stay safe. The active engagement is seen as a positive thing, and she’s willing to jump through a few hoops (like uploading a photo ID) to get there.
Now imagine the inverse. Most guys probably wouldn’t even think of using a men-only app for safety reasons. Like it’s not even on their radar, because safety while dating isn’t something they’re concerned with. Most men probably wouldn’t think of seeking out a men-only app at all. So the pool of men who would be willing to go out of their way to engage with a men-only app is going to look vastly different. The average user likely won’t reflect the average man, because the average man wouldn’t even think to seek out a men-only app. Or if he does, he doesn’t feel strongly enough about it to jump through any hoops to engage. It means the average user would most likely be one of the extremely toxic manosphere/men’s rights advocate/creep/etc stereotypes instead.
To be clear, this isn’t a “not all men” post. Because the reality is that it’s certainly enough men to be concerning. My point is simply that the confirmation bias will be a large factor in whether or not the user base actually reflects the average person.
It’s basically the same way the average Lemmy user doesn’t reflect the average person. If you looked at the average Lemmy user and tried to print that into society, you’d expect the average person to be a Linux-using communist programmer.
Disclaimer: Please consider this a sort of fork of your discussion so far, I only mean to say anything about the parts of your comment I actually reference.
…
Why would women seek out a women-only app? And inversely, why would men seek out a men-only app? The answer to each will be fundamentally different, which means the user bases will be fundamentally different as well.
To a significant degree, yes, but I think you are overstating that degree.
Tea is imo more like a gossip app, ala Nextdoor, just specific to dating.
Tea isn’t a dating app, it is… I guess you could call it … dating-app-meta-review app, from a technically minded standpoint?
A supplement to a (or many) dating app(s).
But it doesn’t actually directly link to[(EDIT: whoops I accidentally a sentence there.)]
It is named ‘tea’, as in gossiping, the deets, the low down, the real story, etc.
Literally this is their own marketing:
https://www.teaforwomen.com/about
It is literally just a replacement for Facebook ‘Are we dating the same guy’ groups, but better, if you pay, because the Premium account allows you to run background / criminal / sex offender records.
…
So, a rough equivalent for guys would probably be named something like MPH, officially Miles Per Hour, unofficially, Miles Per Hoe, I dunno, something edgy for the manosphere crowd, where guys would gossip about cheating girls/women, and also be able to run background checks on them for a premium.
I can guarantee you that men would be broadly interested in such an app if it existed.
…
Now imagine the inverse. Most guys probably wouldn’t even think of using a men-only app for safety reasons. Like it’s not even on their radar, because safety while dating isn’t something they’re concerned with.
Maybe not as much in the safety sense of immediate physical danger, but absolutely in the sense of… is this person financially abusive, emotionally manipulative, do they have kids, or a massive amount of debt/bad spending habits, an STI, etc, that they don’t mention untill they’ve been dating you for some time, do they have a history of acting like they’re committed when they’ve in the past cheated whilst acting like they were monogamous?
These kinds of things apply to both men and women, and are far more common to occur in a dating/relationship than physical abuse.
Yes, women are more likely to be the victim of physical or sexual violence or stalking…
But its not like this doesn’t happen to men.
I can personally tell you that I, a guy, have been so lucky as to have had all three of those happen to me, done by women.
But lets not just use myself as an anecdote, here are the stats on that from the CDC, last updated before the Trump Admin got into power, doesn’t look like they’ve fucked with this page.
https://www.cdc.gov/intimate-partner-violence/about/index.html
IPV is common. It affects millions of people in the United States each year. Data from CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) indicate:1
About 41% of women and 26% of men experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime and reported a related impact.
Over 61 million women and 53 million men have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime.
We could quibble about the exact stats of what sex/gender the partner was, and they do cite some studies directly, but uh, oversimplifying to pretend only heterosexuality exists…
About half as many men have been seriously, violently victimized or stalked as women, and I’d be willing to bet the psychological abuse numbers are at least a bit closer to equal if you account for men being unwilling to admit to being victimized in that way due to internalized machismo, ‘shut up and deal with it’, whatever you want to call it.
…
Point of me saying all this is to throw numbers toward countering your claim here:
Most men probably wouldn’t think of seeking out a men-only app at all. So the pool of men who would be willing to go out of their way to engage with a men-only app is going to look vastly different. The average user likely won’t reflect the average man, because the average man wouldn’t even think to seek out a men-only app.
I agree that it wouldn’t represent the average man, but we’ve got a potential user pool of 50+ million men in the US who’ve been through a bad relationship and would probably also not want to go through that again.
Again, yes it is absolutely true that women more often experience a more severe form of relationship than men, no argument there.
But I don’t think you can just say that a man version of tea would only appeal to blackpilled manosphere men.
Yes, that would likely be a large proportion of the user base, but there are tons of men who are not misogynists and also would like to avoid being played or abused.
…
Also, uh:
You say that,
The active engagement is seen as a positive thing, and she’s willing to jump through a few hoops (like uploading a photo ID) to get there.
But what I am seeing is:
To access Tea, women have to verify their gender by submitting a selfie, which is then verified by the app’s team.
The rest of that quote is that the picture is ‘verified by the Tea team’, but I think we both know that almost certainly means they just use an AI face scanning tool.
Anyway, point is: taking a selfie is a way, way lower bar to entry than taking a picture of your driver’s liscense… basically every dating app already does the former, this is totally normal now, whereas the latter is… so uncommon I cannot think of an example.
So…taking a selfie is not that much of a trifle, not a strong potential blocker, for a guy who’s already used a dating app in the last 5 ish years.
…
EDIT 2:
Occured to me on reviewing this:
… Yeah, an AI face recognition to verify gender?
How… does that work for trans folks, or even probably just non white women, and are women who are maybe bald or have more typically masculine coded shorter hair cuts, with less stereotypically/heuristically feminine facial features?
AI has fucked up this kinda shit in the past quite badly.
