> Upon opening Tea, users are presented with local men whose photos have been uploaded, along with their first names. For each of the men, other women on the app can report whether they deem him a “red flag” or a “green flag” and leave comments about him, such as those recounting negative date experiences or vouching for him as a friend.
The potential problems with this seems obvious…
People on the internet love to judge, gossip and people who know nothing are happy to pile on and spread rumors.
Just the ability to post photos reminds me of the old creepy “fashion” subreddits that clearly were not about fashion…
Won't be long before NBC will update or retract the story. Clearly they're going to be named and shamed. "Women to beware leaked tea" is a funny story.
scotty79 · 1d ago
"Signing up for Tea requires users to take selfies, which the app says are deleted after review, to prove they are women." .... riiight
No comments yet
mcs5280 · 1d ago
They leaked all their users identify verification photos this morning, turns out they were storing them in an open firebase bucket.
Are you shadow banned? I can only upvote and comment on this single edited comment from you.
Are edited comments unflagged somehow? Weird.
sigwinch · 1d ago
Should be obvious that purposefully publicizing some derivative of reputation is going to be used for more harm than good.
New Federal laws mean that individuals can get certain pictures removed. AI likenesses might circumvent those, but you have to wonder how far to trust (positive or negative) anonymous ratings from someone who put the work into crafting an avatar of some guy.
While there’s a noble pursuit behind it, we’ll never see the trouble that it prevented. Instead we’ll see scams where a guy will provide doctored screenshots from Tea that cannot be independently verified. Of course, he’ll be new in town, or need some money.
pridzone · 1d ago
It would be in Apple and Google’s best interest to pull these apps immediately. Multiple Supreme Court justices have indicated an interest in narrowing the breadth of section 230 immunity. This app, structured entirely around effecting the reputation of private individuals, provides a relatively clean case to do so. It’s not a stretch that the app could be considered a ‘developer in part’ of the content it hosts, and thus lose section 230 protection.
A narrowing of section 230 would not be good for Apple or Google, though they wouldn’t face any liability for the Tea apps conduct.
Dracophoenix · 1d ago
Even if Section 230 is written out, the First Amendment still defends app makers from prior restraint. As demonstrated in Snyder v Phelps, It's not illegal to embarrass private individuals or provide a service/platform that permits such an outcome.
pridzone · 1d ago
It is potentially illegal to embarrass private individuals. It’s covered by state defamation and privacy torts. Privacy torts, such as ‘public disclosure of private facts’ can apply even if the information is true. Without section 230 immunity, the app developer can face liability for user generated content. Section 230 protections don’t apply if the app acted as a ‘developer in part’ of the content.
Dracophoenix · 1d ago
Thank you for the clarification.
bjourne · 1d ago
There were Facebook groups like these in Sweden. Men were given labels such as "fuckboys", "charming appearance, disappointing performance in bed", and "sexually attracted to children"... Whoever think things like these work better because it's women talking shit about men, rather than the contrary, is delusional.
ashoeafoot · 1d ago
They do that openly on TikTok. The love of your life needs an extra for fake soapopera drama..
OutOfHere · 1d ago
Spreading gossip on anyone is extremely evil. It's even more evil when there is a dearth of evidence-seeking objectivity as is commonly the case in society.
Doxxing someone's personal details is independently evil.
Defamation is simply illegal.
There have existed background search services, video chat, location sharing, ID exchange, test results exchange, etc. which do the job without gossip.
archagon · 1d ago
If I dated somebody who was abusive or a cheater, I would absolutely want everyone in their future dating pool to know. There's nothing evil about that; if anything, it's more "evil" to stay silent and let innocent people get hurt.
OutOfHere · 23h ago
The issue is that no one knows who posts the truth and who posts exaggerations or lies. People can sometimes have a personal vendetta that is rooted in emotion or even idiocy. I imagine that the app isn't exactly set up to vote on assertions with personal accounts, to allow the truth to emerge.
I will tell you a very simple way to avoid cheaters if that's your goal. Look at their interests. Do their interests involve meeting people and doing lots of social things? Or are they more of an academic type? If they're the former, odds are they will cheat on you eventually. I basically told my partner directly that it's impossible for any man to truly promise that he will never cheat, but my interests make it extremely unlikely that I will, and she was okay with this assertion.
sillyfluke · 14h ago
I agree that this take should be very uncontroversial and innocuous under normal circumstances. Your other comment got flagged to death because commenting about being downvoted is against the guidelines.
Frankly I'm against downvoting people simply because I disagree with them, but I think you have to admit you haven't really addressed the problem mentioned in this thread. The whole issue here is the "a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth puts their boots on" phenomenon of the social media virality era.
It's a difficult problem to solve, but if you have a suggestion for allowing people to help others avoid abusive people without ruining innocent people's lives on the way I'm sure some people here would be curious.
sillyfluke · 1d ago
>Spreading gossip on anyone is extremely evil.
This a naive take. A moderate amount of gossip is good for society. It's a poor man's way of weeding out sociopaths who try to control people using information asymmetry, and who themselves don't have any qualms about spreading falsehoods.
soraminazuki · 16h ago
> This a naive take.
The site is no different from Kiwi Farms, and I'm sure they too believe that they have a just cause. Doesn't matter. Bending over backwards to justify this isn't a naivety-defying smart take, it's just plain horrid.
> A moderate amount of gossip is good for society.
From the article:
> "What clubs does he go to?" another person asked on a different post. "He’s cute."
You think this is social justice? Many jurisdictions have laws against online stalking and doxxing.
sillyfluke · 14h ago
My comment was not addressing anything about Tea specifically, I was responding to the extreme generalization that was being made in that comment, which I directly quoted. We should be careful not to extremely overcorrect in response is all I'm saying. A site that that publishes salary data provided by anonymous users is also a type of "gossip site" for example.
OutOfHere · 1d ago
To be clear, it is those who spread unsubstantiated gossip that are the sociopaths.
sillyfluke · 14h ago
Yes I agree that could be the case, and people figure out which are the falsehoods by the act of gossiping as well, which is the point I'm making (like the anonymous salary data publishing site example I mentioned in another comment).
A generic example: Jack tells Bob Alice spiked his promotion (a lie), knowing they are not on speaking terms and thinking Bob won't confront Alice. If Bob gossips to Alice about what Jack said, he is in a healthier position to make an assessment about the situation.
Don't leave the gossiping to sociopaths is what I'm saying.
tempnew · 13h ago
Got to fight fire with fire. Only way to beat a sociopath is by being a bigger sociopath. Yet, I try to go a different way myself. I choose vulnerability over taking on sociopathic behavior. I’ll probably never become wealthy this way, but virtue is its own reward.
sillyfluke · 10h ago
Well what do you fight bad laws with? That's right you guessed it...other laws. Fighting fire with fire is everywhere. Crackers vs DRM, Reverse engineering vs vendor lockin, whistleblower protection, South Park vs MAGA, you name it.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good by letting those with no moral code run rampant all over the place.
The potential problems with this seems obvious…
People on the internet love to judge, gossip and people who know nothing are happy to pile on and spread rumors.
Just the ability to post photos reminds me of the old creepy “fashion” subreddits that clearly were not about fashion…
Women dating safety app 'Tea' breached, users' IDs posted to 4chan - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44684373 - July 2025 (67 comments)
No comments yet
On topic: how this doxed person got their details removed - https://x.com/JacobJohnson494/status/1948222924235624870
------------
4chan thread with details of the hack - https://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/511317913
A 60 Gig torrent exists of the data - https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1948787086493901097
18.13GB:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3e5a8c55eb4720b4fbd1d0fb5c45adb0fad53569&dn=tea
Are edited comments unflagged somehow? Weird.
New Federal laws mean that individuals can get certain pictures removed. AI likenesses might circumvent those, but you have to wonder how far to trust (positive or negative) anonymous ratings from someone who put the work into crafting an avatar of some guy.
While there’s a noble pursuit behind it, we’ll never see the trouble that it prevented. Instead we’ll see scams where a guy will provide doctored screenshots from Tea that cannot be independently verified. Of course, he’ll be new in town, or need some money.
A narrowing of section 230 would not be good for Apple or Google, though they wouldn’t face any liability for the Tea apps conduct.
Doxxing someone's personal details is independently evil.
Defamation is simply illegal.
There have existed background search services, video chat, location sharing, ID exchange, test results exchange, etc. which do the job without gossip.
I will tell you a very simple way to avoid cheaters if that's your goal. Look at their interests. Do their interests involve meeting people and doing lots of social things? Or are they more of an academic type? If they're the former, odds are they will cheat on you eventually. I basically told my partner directly that it's impossible for any man to truly promise that he will never cheat, but my interests make it extremely unlikely that I will, and she was okay with this assertion.
Frankly I'm against downvoting people simply because I disagree with them, but I think you have to admit you haven't really addressed the problem mentioned in this thread. The whole issue here is the "a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth puts their boots on" phenomenon of the social media virality era.
It's a difficult problem to solve, but if you have a suggestion for allowing people to help others avoid abusive people without ruining innocent people's lives on the way I'm sure some people here would be curious.
This a naive take. A moderate amount of gossip is good for society. It's a poor man's way of weeding out sociopaths who try to control people using information asymmetry, and who themselves don't have any qualms about spreading falsehoods.
The site is no different from Kiwi Farms, and I'm sure they too believe that they have a just cause. Doesn't matter. Bending over backwards to justify this isn't a naivety-defying smart take, it's just plain horrid.
> A moderate amount of gossip is good for society.
From the article:
> "What clubs does he go to?" another person asked on a different post. "He’s cute."
You think this is social justice? Many jurisdictions have laws against online stalking and doxxing.
A generic example: Jack tells Bob Alice spiked his promotion (a lie), knowing they are not on speaking terms and thinking Bob won't confront Alice. If Bob gossips to Alice about what Jack said, he is in a healthier position to make an assessment about the situation.
Don't leave the gossiping to sociopaths is what I'm saying.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good by letting those with no moral code run rampant all over the place.