As Aravosis and others pointed out, however, the finished article certainly veered into risky territory, due largely to The Daily Beast’s inclusion of the height, weight, nationality, and competitive event of several (unnamed) Olympic athletes who were supposedly using Grindr to arrange dates with Hines. The story was then scrubbed of these identifying details but stayed on the site until minutes ago.
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His boasts about athletes photos in full national kit, offering sex in several languages were descriptive to the point of nearly naming several of them.
Hines is quick to tell us that he’s straight, married and has two kids and that he didn’t misrepresent himself ‘unless you count being on Grindr in the first place’.
[Image via Shutterstock] The article was met with swift and harsh criticism.
The article, however, promoted backlash from Twitter and activists in the LGBT community for “outing” several gay athletes including one competing on behalf of a country “where discrimination and violence against the LGBT community is widespread”, according to Attitude magazine. Slate’s Mark Stern called the piece disgusting and irresponsible. But it later admitted that didn’t go far enough.
“But the offensive goal of Hines’ article is really the least of its problems”, Stern adds.
In an Editor’s Note which now sits at the bottom of the article, Editor in Chief John Avlon explains the article has been amended following complaints, writing; “There was legitimate concern that the original version of this story might out gay male athletes, even by implication, or compromise their safety”. This was never our reporter’s intention, of course.
What had been a watershed moment for sexual diversity at the Olympics – 49 of the 10,500 athletes are publicly out, a record high for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender competitors – was replaced by concern for the safety of closeted LGBT athletes, particularly those who may have to return to homes made more risky by potential outings.
He apologised for jeopardising athletes at the village, but said: “It just so happened that Nico had many more responses on Grindr than apps that cater mostly to straight people, and so he wrote about that”. As a result, we have removed all descriptions of the men and women’s profiles that we previously described.
The article outraged columnist Dan Savage, founder of the It Gets Better Project which helps combat suicide among LGBT youth.
However, the rather ugly genie was out of the bottle, and the criticism continued to the point where The Daily Beast took the unusual step of removing the article completely. The web page now redirects to a note from the editor detailing the decision noting that Hines was not to blame. “We were wrong”, the site’s editors wrote.
A number of readers complained to The Daily Beast after the publication of the original iteration of this story. Our initial reaction was that the entire removal of the piece was not necessary.
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The piece from the editors concludes: “The article was not meant to do harm or degrade members of the LGBT community, but intent doesn’t matter, impact does”.
