Grindr: What's behind the new rule that's surprising users?

If you’ve logged into Grindr, the sex app, in the past couple of months, you may have noticed the slow but steady influx of a new kind of profile picture popping up alongside all the headless torsos. The decision to allow some nudity was to “make our moderation process more fair and less prone to bias, as well as to allow our users to express themselves more freely, based on our own user’s feedback.” Hunsberger was likely referring to past and present accusations that certain kind of bodies—typically svelte, white ones—got more leeway than others on Grindr. It wasn’t quite clear how inviting users to submit content that is essentially at odds with most of Grindr’s content policies will address this alleged bias or improve moderation, especially given the inherent absurdity of parsing what is or isn’t “sexually provocative” on a sex app. “I have a million questions about what’s going on over at Grindr and their biased butt-related content moderation policies,” Georgetown professor and cyberlaw scholar Amanda Levendowski told me, “but if users want to consensually share pics of their of-age butts, this seems like a win for them.” Levandowski pointed out that butt profiles could actually be an improvement on traditional face-visible photos, at least from a privacy perspective. In a statement, Eli Martin, the chief creative officer, said “we’re happy, but not surprised, to hear Grindr is working to catch up, although it does seem to be lagging behind ever-evolving user expectations to express and explore their sexual identities online.” He added, “The new butt rules are just that—another set of rules and restrictions around what qualifies as an acceptable photo.” As our lives—and sex lives—become increasingly enmeshed with digital services, it’s important to keep track of the degree to which seemingly banal issues like content policy and data management can impact who we meet and how we have sex.