Dating apps may offer an opportunity for gay men to mingle, but the services also pose a danger in parts of the world where homosexuality is deemed a crime.
While gay men in hostile countries can use these apps to find new friends and lovers while keeping their sexual preference private, they are faced with several dangers if this technology were to fall into the wrong hands. Some punishments include extreme violence/assault, blackmail and possible arrest, according to SFGate.
A case in Pakistan serves as an example of the first danger, in which a paramedic was arrested last year for allegedly killing three men he met through Manjam, a London-based gay social network that has many users in the Middle East and Asia. The suspect told police that he committed the murder because of his belief that homosexuality was "evil."
Popular dating app Grindr has also raised concerns in the LGBT community about violence towards gays due to its ability to pinpoint a user's exact location, Beta Wired reported.
The Los Angeles-based company responded to this concern by saying it will make it harder for users to be found in countries that outlaw gay sex - Zimbabwe, Liberia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Egypt and Russia. However, Grindr warned users in Egypt to be careful because police in the country could be posing as members of the LGBT community to trap them.
The issue has been a main focus of human rights groups, with some claiming that gay sex is illegal in over 70 countries, according to SFGate.
Joel Simkhai, CEO of Grindr, said his company aims to make privacy a top priority for its users. However, he warned that their efforts can be threatened by repressive governments and the surveillance resources they have.
"They have a lot of control and smarts on their side," Simkhai said. "We try to use the latest technologies on our end, but so do they, so this tension will continue."
New York-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has been looking to help members of the LGBT community become more aware of ways that governments try to set them up, Beta Wired reported.
Hossein Alizadeh, the group's program director for the Middle East and North Africa, said methods used by repressive countries to punish gay people include blackmail and entrapment.
Alizadeh added that dating apps and chat-room sites are also used to find and arrest gay people, SFGate reported. One example he provided was a case in Saudi Arabia in which a man from Jordan was deported after being put in jail for eight months, and not one lawyer was willing to defend him.
Due to the lack of gay bars in repressive countries, as well as the covert operations of ones that do exist, dating apps are seen by some gay men as the best chance they have at keeping their homosexuality private and still having the opportunity to maintain the other relationships in their lives.
