Grindr removes the ‘ethnicity filter’ in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement
The gay socializing and discovery app announced the change Monday, saying, “We will continue to fight racism on Grinder, both through dialogue with our community and a zero-tolerance policy toward racism and hate speech on our platform.”
“As part of that commitment and based on your feedback, we have decided to remove the ethnicity filter from our next release.”
Grindr – which describes itself as the world’s “largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people” – has previously come under fire for allowing users to filter matches based on ethnicity as part of its paid “Xtra” service.
Currently, users of this technology can filter potential partners by height, weight, age and nationality, although this is not the only socializing application that offers these filters.
Grindr on Monday defined the policy change as one motivated by solidarity with protesters in the United States.
“It stands in solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the hundreds of thousands of queer people in color who sign up to our app every day.”
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