'Tea' App for Women Posting Dirt on Ex-Boyfriends Hacked

Women are in an uproar over the recent breach of a "women's safety app" called Tea, which is currently the most downloaded app on the Apple Store and is used primarily as a hub for posting "red flag" information on specific men. Tea promotes itself as an place that allows women to anonymously review men and spill "the tea" on those they've dated.

About 1 million women have started using the app in the past week and is reminiscent of the Facebook "Are We Dating the Same Guy?" groups available in many cities. Tea, though, uses AI and private information to verify that people making profiles are real women. Users can run background checks, search for criminal histories and reverse-search photos to check whether a man is catfishing.

It was founded in 2023 by Sean Cook, who cites his mother getting catfished online as the motivation for the app. According to a social media post from Tea, the app has about 4 million users.

Critics argue that the app is a tool for digital stalking and defamation, allowing jilted women to anonymously spread misinformation about their former dates, boyfriends and husbands in order to ruin their future relationship chances and avoid legal repercussions. It acts essentially as a Yelp for men in which anyone can claim anything. Men cannot join the app or respond to accusations.

The underlying danger of the app, beyond the potential for slander, is that it is yet another mechanism that pretends as if men are the problem when it comes to modern dating. Women users say they need the app to filter out poor candidates for meet-ups and relationships, but the use of a digital stalking tool would also be treated by any man as an immediate red flag for a woman.

It would seem that some female users of Tea are about to have their gossip corner blow back on them. The hacking breach of the app exposed tens of thousands of women and their details, which allows men to identify and avoid them. Furthermore, pictures of Tea members are circulating widely on social media as a source of meme comedy (a number of the users are less than attractive).

Women commenters assert that the hack is more proof that women's "safe spaces" are under attack.

The incident was likely inspired by a thread on 4Chan discussing Tea, with some members creating a call to action to expose it. A 4Chan user posted a link Friday morning, allegedly allowing people to download the database of stolen images, and troves of alleged victims’ identification photos have been posted on 4Chan and X.

While the data leak is small compared to the number of total users, it does create doubts as to the security of personal information in the future. Whether or not this affects Tea's user activity is another matter. In all likelihood, the company will be shut down by litigation (websites with similar women's whisper networks have been crushed by lawsuits over the years).

In the past, dating was relegated to limited environments; neighborhoods and towns in which bad behavior would eventually be exposed (if real) by word of mouth, and accusations could be addressed and debunked (if false). With the advent of online dating and social media, the gossip mill has gone global and an average person's reputation can be destroyed on an epic scale. Everyone is in everyone else's business and there is no privacy or escape.

The fact that online stalking by women is treated as acceptable while a similar project by men would be treated as a national emergency clarifies the greater problem at hand. Feminism has led to male demonization and a crippling double standard in social interactions where bad behavior by women is excusable.