看着？Kànzhe? Looking?
底部？Dǐbù? Bottom?
最佳? Zuì jiā? Top?
多才多艺？Duōcáiduōyì? Versatile?
If the Russians interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, will the Chinese interfere with your sex life?
A column published Friday in the Washington Post reports that former intelligence officials and China experts have questioned the privacy implications of the recent acquisition of Grindr, the West Hollywood-headquartered gay sex app, by the Kunlun Group, a Chinese online game develper
Kunlun acquired a 60% stake in Grindr in January 2016 and recently bought the remaining 40%, an acquisition that is said to have valued the company at $245 million. Joel Simkhai, the gay Angeleno who launched Grindr in 2009, has left the company and was replaced on Jan. 5 by Yahui Zhou, chairman of the board of Grindr, who will serve as the interim CEO. Grindr’s vice-chairman, Wei Zhou, was named executive vice-chairman and CFO. It is unclear whether they will be stationed in Grindr’s headquarters in the Pacific Design Center Red Building in West Hollywood, which houses most of the company’s 100 employees, or in Beijing.
In the column, headlined “Can the Chinese government now get access to your Grindr profile?” Josh Rogin writes that the announcement that Kunlun acquired the remainder of Grindr “set off alarms among officials and experts that track Chinese intelligence and foreign influence operations in the United States. The Chinese government is sweeping up massive amounts of data on not only its own citizens, but also Americans and others, as part of a unique and well-planned effort to build files on foreigners for intelligence purposes.”
In his column, Rogin notes that the Chinese government has a history of hacking sites either directly or through Chinese companies to obtain sensitive data.
Grindr’s vice president of marketing, Peter Sloterdyk, told Rosen that Grindr “employs state-of-the-art technical means to protect user data over 190 countries.” He also said that Grindr “has never disclosed any user data to the Chinese government nor does it intend to do so.”
Grindr has been used by authoritarian governments in countries such as Egypt to track down and arrest gay men. Ars Technica, the technology website, has reported that “Grindr developers modified the app to disable lotion tracking in Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Liberia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and any other place with anti-gay laws.” However, Ars Technica said that there remain other weaknesses with the app that potentially can put its users in danger.
With over 3.3 million daily active users in every country in the world, Grindr claims to be largest LGBTQ “mobile social network.” While in recent years it has worked to brand itself as a social network and advocate for LGBT rights, it still is seen largely as a place where gay men can other gay men nearby for sex.
