[ssnistfajen]

Yeah, US national security risks such as not being able to teach government & military personnel the very basics of how to pre-emptively avoid being blackmailed.

If such personnel willingly uploads compromising photos of themselves online, then it's their own fault, not the platform or the platform owner's.

[ryanmercer]

It's less sexually compromising photos and more

"Mr. Smith that works for government/corporate office of company, we have chats of you trying to solicit other men, tut tut, what ever will your wife and daughter think, we don't have to tell them but you'll have to do something for us in return".

This is literally the kind of stuff that agencies like the Defense Security Service looks for when investigating people to issue security clearance, in the case of DSS for stuff under the Department of Defense umbrella. It's just one way you can be exploited.

Similarly, I have a bankruptcy, that makes it difficult for me to ever have a security clearance again, especially anything greater than Confidential. My poor credit choices make me a 'security risk' because I might amass debt again and be easily influenced eyeroll.

[ssnistfajen]

Are government/military personnel somehow entitled to being able to cheat and solicit casual sex? If someone does that while possessing top security clearance or sensitive info, they have clearly demonstrated themselves as vulnerable to exploitation. This is first and foremost an internal personnel problem. If such behaviour happens on U.S.-owned platforms it is still problematic.

[ryanmercer]

Sex, debts and gambling are THE go to blackmail avenues for recruiting assets.

It needn't be someone cheating either, being gay is still not socially acceptable in MANY circles remove wife/daughter from the above and change it to pastor, co-worker, employer, mother, father.

It doesn't have to be just the fact that the individual is gay or bi either, a listed kink could be used to coerce someone into a mildly compromising situation to maintain their privacy, then once you get them to do something compromising with their employer you now have even more leverage "oh well we could tell them you did this for us, so you'd better keep co-operating".

This is also used in television, an example being I believe season 2 of Madam Secretary with the gay Russian student at the war college and the FBI secretary in The Americans is compromised through a vanilla heterosexual relationship.

It's also used in non-espionage/corporate sabotage stages, like sextortion with both adults and minors by ether coercing someone into doing sexual things on camera or hacking a webcam/hiding a camera and catching them doing something sexual (or just naked) and using it as leverage against them.

This is a fairly competent wiki article with the TL:DR being

>There have been various attempts to explain why people become spies. One common theory is summed up by the acronym MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise or Extortion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_spying

Compromise or Extortion being the important parts as far as Grindr is concerned.

[ssnistfajen]

Grindr is just one tool in a long list of possible extortion opportunities. And no, a gay pastor being blackmailed is nowhere near a "national security risk". This should strictly concern people who work for the U.S. government, intelligence, and military agencies.

None of the security concerns you mentioned will be solved if Grindr is placed under "trusted" ownership. Having a Grindr profile is a choice, not an entitlement or obligation. This is being framed as a national security issue 3 years after Kunlun Tech acquires majority stake in Grindr and 18 months after it fully bought out Grindr, because hate-fearing all things (and people) Chinese is too in vogue in the U.S. right now to not join on the bandwagon.

[ryanmercer]

I never said 'a gay pastor' I said someone can be blackmailed with the threat of being revealed to their pastor, as an example, so someone like you didn't come along and Go "yeah but no but yeah but no but yeah but nooooo no one would ever threaten to report someone to their dog's groomer's uncle's cousin's girlfriend, so unbelievable".

The fact is this is an app owned by a Chinese company that is being used by a vulnerable, often still persecuted, community to hook up with anonymous individuals that may or may not be openly gay.

It is worth noting that homosexuality was illegal until 1997 in China, was classified a mentall inless until 2001, in a country that still regularly bans LGBTQ events, that does not allow homosexuality in television shows or movies as part of a list that also includes 'sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on', in a country where creating content on the internet that contains references to homosexuality and the scientifically accurate words for genitalia is strictly banned.

If that's not enough reasons for you to scratch your head at a Chinese company owning a gay hook up app... then I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree.

[ssnistfajen]

And? You think Chinese Gov will spend the time and effort to blackmail some random civilian on the other side of the world? Is this some regurgiated version of the false spiel claming that "all companies are direct arms of the Chinese government"?

When Kunlun Tech's ownership of Grindr was labelled as a national security risk, the U.S. government certainly did not take China's LGBT rights record or the privacy of regular American civilians into consideration. It was strictly about government & military personnel. I applaud your vivid & divergent thinking skills buy I'm afraid you've gone too far from the actual issue.