Tinder And Grindr Are Being Questioned Over Report On Child Rape Cases

Tinder and Grindr are being bombarded with questions on how they ensure the safety of minors after a report reveals several child molesting cases that have relations to these dating apps.

According to Jeremy Wright, Britain’s Cultural Secretary, he would demand these companies to give information on the measures they have taken to confirm users’ age. If the answer did not meet his expectations, he would carry out other actions.

This act is Wright’s answer to a report on the Sunday Times which brought out into the open over 30 cases of sexual abuse of minors that date back to 2015 after the victims managed to pass these apps’ age verification.

That is not all. The report also opened up about 60 other cases that have a correlation with virtual dating apps. The publication house’s data are said to be collected in accordance with the laws on freedom of information. The youngest victim was only 8 years old while culprits’ means range from grooming, abduction to molesting. The term “grooming” refers to the action of gaining a children’s trust first and then abuses that trust to sexually assault them.

After the report is out, Grindr made public that they were “saddened” by the news. They also said that Grindr’s ultimate goal is to building a platform to facilitate people’s connection. These abuses were violations of its terms of service.

The company’s spokesperson stated that Grindr was working on their tools to detect and eliminate improper acts happening on their app. They also called for the help of the community either by reporting right in the app or send an email to legal@grindr.com.

Tinder has not made any comment on this matter for now.

In the case of Instagram, the accusation it faced was not exactly related to child molesting. Last week, the social network was under fire after the family of Molly Russell, a girl who took her own life due to depression, blamed the platform for her death. Instagram later announced that it would ban graphic self-harm images.