Formidable Judge Judy has presided over a case involving Grindr on her popular court room TV show.
Judge Judith Sheindlin recently heard a case in her court that involved two men who met over Grindr and fell out over an unpaid loan.
The defendant Adam Murphy said, ‘Um, we met on a, um…social website. Um, it’s actually called Grindr…Grindr, it’s an app. For your phone or your iPad. It’s a social app that tells you where homosexual males are and their proximity. To where you are.’
However Judge, despite her contempt for the defendant, who accused him of being dishonest and using the man, dismissed the case, because the plaintiff had never been clear about repayment of the loan.
• The popular hook up app has had its users triple in the first week of the Olympic games
• One week ago there was 185 active users, now there are 541 users
• Grindr rival in Russia Hunters was recently hacked and shut down.
Vocativ is reporting that numbers of users on the popular hook up app Grindr have tripled during the Winter Olympic games. The total number of users in Russia is around 55,000 – small compared to countries such as the UK or USA, but there is much potential for growth as long as anti-gay groups don’t use the service to lure gay men to attack and entrap them.
One such group was filmed for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme called Hunted. The programme caused outcry in the UK, when a group of men and one woman, Katya (Ekaterina) Zigunova, were filmed savagely beating and interrogating a gay man they found using an Internet site. Last year a man was reportedly killed after he was lured, sanred and then tortured by a group, who posed as an individual on a social network site, who wanted to meet.
Russia does have its own hook up app, called Hunters. It was, however, recently hacked and shut down.
The app had around 72,000 active users, of which the tech team were only able to retrieve 24% after the hack.The company is now moving its servers to prevent further attacks.
Last year the Russian government passed a bill making it illegal to talk about ‘non-traditional’ relationships to anyone under the age of 18. A 100-year ban was also put in place on holding a gay pride in Moscow.
THEGAYUK approached Grindr to ask if they had in place any safeguards for users in Russia to protect them from abuse from anti-gay abusers. We are waiting for their response.
Pierre Fitch has taken to Twitter to vent his frustrations about Grindr after receiving a support-message saying his account had been permanently banned.
In a tweet directed at @Grindrsupport the porn actor blasted the hook-up app saying:
‘Is this for real I been banned for being my self is this becoming the new Facebook’
The actor and DJ, who has over 61,000 followers on Twitter had been sent a message from Grindr support accusing him of being an impostor; with a lifetime ban on the profile and that it would not be removed.
@Grindrsupport said that they had update his ticket, but Pierre threw back:
‘how long does it take to reply too look at 2 pictures seems long process’
Grindr eventually sorted the issue for the actor, but Fitch remarked:
‘Great but Customer Service should be your #1 Priority don’t ban unless you know the truth of the matter !! Thanks’
Facebook came under fire last week after it ban users who had posted a picture of two men kissing.
Admins for the Facebook group ‘Have A Gay Day’ had been banned after some users reported the above picture as being offensive. Facbeook claimed it “violates community standards.”
The social media giant then had a u-turn saying that the photo was removed in error and has since been restored.
Last year TheGayUK interviewed the founder of Grindr Joel Simkhai, read it here
Have you had problems with Grindr or Facebook banning your account?
Grindr has become a way of hooking up and cruising for gay guys around the world. Phenomenally the App has had over 6 million download in 4 years. There are bound to be some fantastic Grindr fails. We report… (It’s a tough job)
Sometimes the ‘play hard to get’ works…
Beware of false prophets
This is so Laura Ashley, We love it
Perfect way to immediately defuse the situation and sexual tension between the two of you.
If at first you don’t succeed try, try, try and try again… Then give up.
There are over 775,000 Apps in Apple’s App store and around 872 of those are labelled as gay – so, it’s a bit of search to find the right one for you, luckily we’ve done some downloading to find you the good, the best and the brilliant.
Well occupying the top spot is Joel Simkhai’s ubiquitous Grindr App, which has dominated the App scene for a few years now. What started off as a personal hookup App for Simkhai, has literally changed the way gay men date around the globe. Last year we had a chat with the genius behind Grindr – read the interview here.
Bashing. We wrote about this App a short while ago and initially weren’t sure what to think, however on reflection, Bashing is a brilliant App to bring visibility to the hundreds of gay bashings that happen across the world. The developers say, “Sometimes it seems like homophobia is claiming the streets. And in order to address this problem, people need to know what happens and where.”
Pinknews. It’s a must for every gay on the go, keeping you abreast of the homophobic happenings across the globe. Contributed to by a team of journalists Pinknews has won a number of awards for its content and it’s a free App too!
Gaydio. If you like your radio gay, then you have to download Gaydio. Recently Gaydio took over from Gaydar Radio to become the UK’s number 1 gay radio station. Playing a steady stream of current chart hits Gaydio also keeps you informed with daily gay round ups and breaking news from the Sky News Centre.
My Free Gay Agenda, is a powerful personal calendar app. What we love about the MGA App is its “Today In Gay” feature, which gives you ‘a daily historical synopsis of key “historical events” from the gay community. Insightful – and apparently today in 2005 Alan Cumming launched his fragrance ‘Cumming’ at Fred Segal in Los Angeles.
And finally, well we have to plug our own TheGayUK App.Every gay business, bar, hotel, sauna and sexual health service in the UK listed in one place – and you can find which one is closest to your present location. Plus our full magazine is available for free as well as RSS news feeds from all your favourite news organisations around the world – what more could you want? (Yes there are also pictures of hot mens!)
Radoronline.com are reporting that Paris Hilton has been caught on tape making homophobic remarks about homosexual men who use the mobile phone App Grindr.
The site has the recording currently available for streaming of a conversation that reportedly takes place between Paris and a gay friend in a cab ride.
The male friend said:
“Say I log into Grindr, someone that’s on Grindr can be in that building and it tells you all the locations of where they are and you can be like, ‘Yo, you wanna f**k?’ and he might be on like, the sixth floor,”
“Ewww. Eww. To get f**ked? Gay guys are the horniest people in the world,” Paris is heard saying.
“They’re disgusting. Dude, most of them probably have AIDS.”
The cab driver who recorded the conversation between the male model and the heiress said:
“I couldn’t believe what was coming out of Paris’ mouth and the way she was talking about gay men.”
During the 50 second clip, Paris is also heard to say:
“I would be so scared if I were a gay guy,” Paris says.
“You’ll like, die of AIDS.”
When RadarOnline.com asked Paris Hilton’s spokesperson for a comment tell were told:
“Paris Hilton’s comments were to express that it is dangerous for anyone to have unprotected sex that could lead to a life threatening disease. The conversation became heated, after a close gay friend told her in a cab ride, a story about a gay man who has AIDS and is knowingly having unprotected sex. He also discussed a website that encourages random sex by gay men with strangers. As she was being shown the website her comments were in reference to those people promoting themselves on the site. The cab driver who recorded this, only provided a portion of the conversation. It was not her intent to make any derogatory comments about all gays. Paris Hilton is a huge supporter of the gay community and would never purposefully make any negative statements about anyone’s sexual orientation.”
Perez Hilton has waded into the conversation – and has taken to his blog site to state that: ‘Paris reached out to us to EXCLUSIVELY share her side of the story.”
The report goes on to say:
“Our insider explained to us that this convo was recorded while Paris and her GAY friends were taking a cab during Fashion’s Night Out. While the source concedes that she and her pals were “obviously wasted,” the source explains that Paris’ friends were actually just concerned about a friend of theirs in Spain who knowingly has AIDS, but still has unprotected sex with people and doesn’t tell them! When Paris’ pals went on to share that this Spanish friend was also actively seeking sexual partners online for unprotected sex, that’s when the comments of these types of actions being “gross” and “disgusting” came into play. According to our insider, Paris’ comments were directed towards one reckless individual, not the community at large.
In regards to the recording, we’re told the cab driver “tampered with the tape, cut up conversation and only used small part of the conversation.” Obviously, leaving out the initial part about the irresponsible friend of her friend makes Paris seem equally as ignorant, but such is just not the case. We’ve been assured that not only is Paris beside herself over this whole ordeal, but considering that 80% of her friends are gay, she feels this is “beyond lame.”
Yeah, it really kind of is. Disregarding the complete invasion of privacy and the blatant exploitation of a celeb to make $$$, this is the wrong kind of catalyst to get people talking about the gay community. We can only imagine how many people are going to run with this story and make a big production about gays spreading AIDS, rather than get conversations going on what we can do, as a human community, to find a cure or better educate those who are infected.” –
We were curious to meet the man behind Grindr, so when one Friday night whilst, erm, “Researching” on Grindr, a message popped up telling us the man himself was visiting London for WorldPride. Unsure what to expect we meet the modest, easy on the eye and contemplative Joel Simkhai in a hotel, central London. Sounds like it could be Grindr working at its very best..
Welcome to the capital of Grindr, London being the #1 city for Grindr users, does that surprise you at all?
Thank you! It doesn’t surprise me, it’s obviously a large city and it’s obviously got a lot of gay men and Stephen Fry mentioned us on Top Gear about three years ago and it is a very popular show. It put us on the map here in the UK.
I think you’ve made the UK a lot less prudish, because with nearly every message comes a picture of someone’s pink bits! Did you expect that to happen when you created Grindr?
For me, when I look at Grindr I see all kinds of things, I think that’s part of it, but there are other parts to it also. Gay men have had to always look for other gay men, and we’re also men, so we’re hunters. I think it’s a big part of who we are. We’re looking to meet the other gay guy in the room and thats what Grindr does. It shows you the other gay guy in the room, the other gay guy on the block. For me when we launched this thing, there wasn’t much expectation or idea where it would go or what it would do, it was just a hope that I could find other gay guys. I’m glad that we’ve now been able to do that.
Gay men have had to always look for other gay men, and we’re also men, so we’re hunters. I think it’s a big part of who we are.
JOEL On Grindr’s purpose
Grindr has very strict censorship on its front-page. Users can’t have nudity on their profile picture. Is there any reason for that?
Yes, a number of reasons, but the most important one is that we believe in having an environment that is not overtly sexualised. An environment that is consistent to real life as possible. In real life you don’t usually see someone naked when you first meet them. So when you do find someone that you want to be intimate with, there is an unveiling process and we believe in that. It’s human nature. Also, not everyone is looking for something like that, I been on sites where it’s a free for all, it’s like walking into a sex shop. I feel kind of icky, so my hope for Grindr is that people can feel very comfortable, very safe and don’t have to feel icky. The other thing is that Google and Apple they have their own guidelines that mandate that there not be any nudity so there’s a full spectrum of reasons why.
Are you a technology geek? Did you get down and dirty with the code?
I am a tech geek, but I’m not a developer, I’m not a coder… I love technology and I love gadgets and have an understanding of technology, so I can talk to our developers and architects on a certain level. I probably can’t talk with great detail and maybe they would say: “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about…” but I think I have sense of what I’m talking about. We have a team of 50 in Los Angeles and they work in-house and a good proportion of them are developers.
Do you have any technological icons or idols?
Certainly Steve Jobs, I think Steve Jobs stands out as someone I have a tremendous amount of respect for; and I’m very sadden by his loss. He’s changed almost how everyone lives. There are very few people out there who can take something so complicated and make it so easy and so beautiful. He made it fun. I think he’s ingrained a culture of innovation in his company; they’ve got a smart team, really smart people and one will never know what would have happened if he was still alive.
Can you ever take a holiday from Grindr?
Not really, but I’ve got a very great team. Certainly when I used to travel in the early days it was very difficult to actually get away from it, but it’s getting better. I’ll never be a guy who can turn off his phone and get off the grid, but nor do I want to be. I don’t have Joel’s time, I don’t want just Joel’s time. You know this is fun stuff, this is a great thing I’m doing for myself, I love it. There’ll be plenty of time at some point in my life where I probably won’t be doing this and I get anxious just thinking of those days – This is my baby, it’s hard. If you ask a parent to tell their kid that they’re not available they’d look at you pretty strange right?
Would you ever persuaded to sell ‘the kid’ at any point?
I don’t think about it too much, I get anxious when I give it too much thought. This notion that ‘Joel, ‘X days from now or X months from now that Grindr will not be part of your life but just be a part of my resumé or a part of my history’ makes me very anxious, makes me very uncomfortable. It’s largely part of my identity, some people call me ‘Grindr Guy’ so it is very much a part of who I am.
So are you happy with that mantle – the Grindr guy?
Absolutely!
If this was the last thing for you to be remembered by, would you be happy with that?
Absolutely, I mean, do I want to die tomorrow? Absolutely not… The one caveat to that is that I think I’ve got more in-store for me. One of them is that I certainly want to do more and I want to devote more of my time, possibly full time, to gay equality and doing more towards activism, particularly in the countries where it is illegal and it’s dangerous. We’ve started to do things with ‘Grindr for Equality’ but I’d love to devote some or all of my energies to that.
Ok, lets talk about Grindr for Equality, what is its purpose? What is it for?
It’s our effort to advance equality and leveraging our number one asset, our guys, our community, our engaged audience. That’s over a million guys every single day around the world. Pockets of concentrated gay men who have a voice, who have power and they have a lot of power united. So through Grindr for Equality what we’re trying to do is create a mass so that we can speak with a very loud voice – an influential voice. Grindr for Equality can be broken down into two things. One, our mission is to inform. To inform you of things going on around you, in your city, town, state or your country. Things that have relevance to you and then showing you how you can make a difference. Whether it’s to make a call, sign a petition or go to a rally. That’s what drives Grindr for Equality. Last year the New York senate was looking at marriage equality and there were five senators who were on the fence. They were undecided. So what we did was target their constituents and told them that their senator was on the fence. Please call them! And people could call them right from their phone. It was very effective, sometimes we go as local as possible, sometimes national, sometimes international. We can go as local as down to the mile. It can be very targeted.
What do your family think of the App? Are you open to your family?
My Dad sent me an email, he was at gay pride and he said: “Where’s the Grindr float?” and he sent me a picture. He was in a Grindr T-shirt running around and demanded that next year I have a float and that he be invited! A very supportive and excited family. My dad actually has Grindr and he’s added me as a ‘favourite’ he says: “I keep up on where in the world you are by looking to see how far away you are!” He can keep tabs on where I am!
Where did the name come from?
We looked for something that was masculine and tough and I think all our branding: our logo, our colouring almost everything about it falls into those categories. We were looking for something a bit aggressive and thought of this notion of the coffee grinder and the notion of mixing, but it’s not just the idea of mixing it’s about grinding, very powerful and so it’s a little rough, we wanted an edginess to it, we didn’t want a softness to it.
