“Within 24 hours, Tinder issued its cease and desist letter, claiming AHF’s public service ad, “…is responsible for…falsely associating Tinder with the contraction of venereal disease.”
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Tech Crunch has pointed out that there is absolutely no scientific evidence to prove that using such apps will cause an STD.
Though the research on whether or not dating apps have killed courtship and irrevocably altered romance as we know it is largely inconclusive, the correlation between online and mobile dating and increased rates of STD transmission is more compelling, at least on a state-by-state basis.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation launched a new campaign Sunday about sexually transmitted diseases and its billboards feature the names of popular dating apps.
Grindr, which was also featured in the ad, has so far not demanded its takedown or supported Tinder, but did confirm to the L.A. Times that it has dropped the AHF’s paid ads within the app for the moment. This article, in turn, kicked off the craziest brand meltdown in Twitter history.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) put up the campaign as a promotion for free STD checks and used a dozen large billboards and 45 bus stop benches showing the silhouettes of four people: one man labelled Tinder embracing a woman labelled with the word “chlamydia”, and also the silhouette of a man labelled Grinder facing another man labelled “gonorrhoea”.
“Mobile dating apps are rapidly altering the sexual landscape by making casual sex as easily available as ordering a pizza”, Whitney Engeran-Cordova, senior director of public health division for AHF, said on the foundation’s blog. One such article appeared in Vanity Fair magazine that said location-based dating apps are one of the reasons why there is a rise in casual sexual encounters.
The foundation responded that it would not remove the billboard.
“While these sexual encounters are often intentionally brief or even anonymous, sexually transmitted diseases can have lasting effects on an individual’s personal health and can certainly create epidemics in communities at large”, the statement continued.
AHF said they will not take down the billboard.
The campaign is meant to draw attention to rising STD rates among users of mobile dating or “hookup” phone apps such as Grindr, Scruff and Tinder.
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Posters are now up in Los Angeles, and there are plans to display them in New York, Miami and Florida.
