Daily Beast reporter uses Grindr app to out gay Olympic athletes

[Ex Lurker]

including some from countries where homosexuality is illegal http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/08/11/the_daily_beast_s_olympics_grindr_stunt_is_dangerous_and_unethical.html

On Thursday morning, the Daily Beast published an exceedingly gross and bizarre article by a straight, married male writer who lured in gay Olympians through hookup apps for no particular purpose. The entire piece is an astoundingly creepy exercise in Grindr-baiting, which involves a journalist accessing Grindr in an unlikely setting and … seeing what happens. But the Daily Beast piece, penned by Nico Hines, is a uniquely disgusting and irresponsible entry into the tired genre. Hines entices his (often closeted) subjects under false pretenses; effectively outs several closeted athletes who live in repressive countries; then writes about the whole thing in a tone of mocking yet lurid condescension. By 10:30 a.m. ET, the Daily Beast had, in response to criticism, edited out the most identifying details about closeted athletes—but that’s too little, too late.

[Iliyah]

1. WTF

[Oneironaut]

2. Gawker part two?

It's like they saw the smoldering, sinking ship that is Gawker and thought, "Let's do the same things!" Ever hear the definition of insanity?

[EL34x4]

3. At what point did someone think this was a good idea?

[closeupready]

4. So do all straight men have Grindr accounts? I mean, for research purposes,

of course!

Do all straight men possess the interest to set up Grindr accounts, so as to bait male sex partners in order to expose those partners publicly?

[gratuitous]

5. It leads me to wonder . . .

I don't really want to go to The Daily Beast website, but I wonder how they treated the Ashley Madison ruckus? For those that don't remember, Ashley Madison was the website where a married person could go scouting around for someone to have an affair with. The site got hacked, and some of the subscribers were exposed for their wandering ways, including some rather prominent Christian moralists.

I wonder how The Daily Beast responded when the consenting adults of Ashley Madison had their privacy invaded like that, and if it has any relation to this sick story?

[kcr]

6. What made you think of Ashley Madison?

People cheating on their spouses is equivalent in your mind? Because I don't think so.

[gratuitous]

11. Accessibility in the public memory, mostly

There really isn't a straight equivalent to gay people living in societies where they have to fear for their lives if their sexual orientation is discovered. But the invasion of privacy angle and the relatively recent occurrence of the Ashley Madison incident might help folks understand the heinousness of the Daily Beast's story.

You fabricated one aspect to try to establish an assertion of equivalency? Because I don't think so.

[kcr]

15. What did I fabricate? You made the comparison.

I think it's the fact that cheaters don't have to live in fear for their lives that made it particularly hard to swallow. I'm not saying it makes leaking their personal info okay. Just hardly even close to the same thing.

[gratuitous]

16. My explicit comparison was to the invasion of privacy

You're the one who tried to tease out a comparison between outing gay people and people cheating on their spouses. Nice attempt at ersatz outrage, but I'm not playing your game.

[closeupready]

7. That's an excellent question. Those of us who are gay probably can guess -

the Ashley Madison expose likely was condemned by the Daily Beast as invasion of privacy, if it got any attention at all.

Most scandal rags (like the Daily Mail or the NY Post) have an arch-conservative bias, and establishment indiscretions are excused/ignored (akin to that acronym IOKIYAR), while minorities get laser precise scrutiny and public exposure/condemnation for jaywalking, dirty looks, and less.

[kcr]

8. But even if they condemned the AM expose. What the Daily Beast reporter did is so much worse.

I think comparing it to the AM hack minimizes what he did. Exposing cheaters who are choosing to lie to people they made a commitment to simply isn't the same thing as the DB reporter victimizing totally innocent people.

[closeupready]

9. I don't disagree with your point, but it's a fine one, IMO.

That is, for those who aren't gay (like many people on DU and everywhere, really), the salient point is that what the Daily Beast clown did (with apparent editorial sanction) is give aid/comfort to those who persecute a minority group (gay people) under the pretext of doing journalistic research.

In other words, if they condemned or ignored the Ashley Madison expose, then they are exposing their far right-wing bias, and they are thus NO better than disgusting media sources we pillage here every single day. (In my humble opinion, of course.)

[kcr]

10. Where I disagree is, I don't think that's what shows their right wing bias

For one thing, I think the very act speaks for itself. It's bad enough as it is. But I don't think it's necessarily a right wing POV to think that not all privacy breaches are equal, and the reasons for the hack don't matter. In other words, it's a reasonable position, even if you may not agree with it, that there could be valid reasons for hacking data. It's not all the same. I'm not trying to defend DB at all, or the AM hack for that matter. I just really bristled at that comparison.

[closeupready]

12. Understood.

[MrScorpio]

13. This is disgusting

I'm thoroughly appalled by this.

[MicaelS]

14. It is really disgusting.....

That someone would do that. It is hatred of gay men, closeted or not. Some reporters (and I use that term loosely) really are vile POS.

[closeupready]

17. UPDATE: The Daily Beast REMOVED this lurid piece of crap.

Hmmm.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/11/a-note-from-the-editors.html?via=desktop&source=twitter

A Note From the Editors

Today, The Daily Beast took an unprecedented but necessary step: We are removing an article from our site, “The Other Olympic Sport In Rio: Swiping.”

The Daily Beast does not do this lightly. As shared in our editor’s note earlier today, we initially thought swift removal of any identifying characteristics and better clarification of our intent was the adequate way to address this. Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary. We were wrong. We’re sorry. And we apologize to the athletes who may have been inadvertently compromised by our story.

Today we did not uphold a deep set of The Daily Beast’s values. These values—which include standing up to bullies and bigots, and specifically being a proudly, steadfastly supportive voice for LGBT people all over the world—are core to our commitment to journalism and to our commitment to serving our readers.
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We were wrong. We will do better.

Well, this is better than nothing.