Predictably, a review app for human beings has not been universally popular, drawing criticism from both men who feared having their information posted online and experts<\/a> who identified serious privacy and defamation concerns, both in and out of the app.<\/p>\n While Tea prohibits screenshots, TikTok users have managed to post<\/a> their screens while scrolling through the app. Men, whether through word-of-mouth or accessing the app themselves, have also been able to see<\/a> and respond<\/a> to their reviews. In addition to collecting data to potentially share with advertisers, Tea\u2019s privacy policy states that the company may share users\u2019 information to \u201crespond to lawful requests and legal processes.\u201d As reporter Amanda Hoover wrote for Business Insider<\/a>, this caveat \u201ccould open women who think they\u2019re posting in good faith to defamation suits by disgruntled men whose reputations suffer by what has been posted about them, even if it\u2019s accurate.\u201d It was almost too predictable when Tea reported<\/a> a cyberattack on July 25 that exposed users\u2019 personal information, direct messages, and selfies. As a result, its messaging function has been suspended<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ultimately, the \u201cname and shame\u201d premise of the app has drawn the most controversy online, including some bad-faith takes. It\u2019s the sort of panic and debate that occurred when the \u201cShitty Media Men\u201d spreadsheet<\/a> leaked in 2017 and following the launch of the now-shuttered dating app Lulu<\/a> in 2014, which crowdsourced information about men in a similar way as Tea.<\/p>\n While there are, as Cook\u2019s reasons for creating the app imply, serious and justifiable<\/a> reasons<\/a> why women who date men online might seek to protect themself by learning more about the guys they meet, arguably, an app like Tea is problematic. The biggest issue is that a commercially available app misunderstands the value, as well as the limits, of whisper networks in keeping women safe. While these resources have proven to be necessary in workplaces and the wider social world, they become a lot more complicated and misused once they\u2019re commodified.<\/p>\n The dating world is rough, in ways big and small <\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to read Tea as a cynical attempt to capitalize on the distraught and dystopian landscape of dating right now.<\/p>\n \u201cMen and women are approaching dating assuming that other people are out to mislead them,\u201d relationship expert Rachel Vanderbilt says. \u201cThis includes what they\u2019re looking for in a relationship, what their values are, or whether they are seeing other people. An app like this really feeds into insecurities and mistrust.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, surveillance and informal snitching have become normalized in the process of finding (or maybe just eliminating) a potential partner. People regularly post their negative or simply awkward communications<\/a> on dating apps like Hinge for their followers to dissect. A large swath of storytime videos on TikTok are dedicated to users discussing bad dating experiences<\/a>, sometimes revealing the culprit\u2019s name and turning them into notorious figures<\/a>.<\/p>\n A dishy posture is common in this realm, and Tea made the choice to capitalize on that by having a name that\u2019s queer slang for gossip. As one TikTok user pointed out<\/a>, the fact that the dating safety app, which donates a portion of its profits to the National Domestic Abuse Hotline, uses such salacious marketing feels a bit odd and inconsistent. It implies a level of frivolousness. Additionally, an image on Tea\u2019s website shows one woman whispering to another woman, who has a shocked \u2014 not exactly distressed \u2014 expression on her face.<\/p>\n Similarly, the app\u2019s use of \u201cred flags\u201d to denote behaviors that would compromise a woman\u2019s safety has been equally problematic, given how loosely the term is used online. A red flag could mean anything from stalking behavior, emotional abuse and manipulation, and physical danger to a man not texting back by a certain time. How, exactly, should users decide what kind of behavior warrants listing? How expansive should a red flag be? Isn\u2019t it a problem if it can encompass everything from serious physical abuse to regular, human mistakes?<\/p>\n Things become even more unreliable with the app\u2019s criminal background checks. Experts have historically criticized<\/a> these types of screenings on dating apps, like Tinder, explaining that gendered violence is often unreported. As a result, abusers aren\u2019t often interacting with the criminal justice system. App users are buying into an idea of security that may be little more than a mirage.<\/p>\n The problem with selling a whisper network<\/p>\n In many ways, Tea is specifically a poorly made product. Still, the broader failure of apps of its type, despite the demand, demonstrates how tackling social issues like gendered violence can be antithetical to the goals and strategies of consumer capitalism.<\/p>\n A company that \u201cgender washes,\u201d or leverages feminism for marketing, might well hold equality as a true goal, says Natasha Mulvihill, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Bristol. But, she explains, \u201cprofit and marketing logics can mean these aims become distorted, contradictory, and potentially harmful.\u201d<\/p>\n The distortion here is obvious in the marketing: to spread widely and collect users, the app has to present a serious issue as fun, light, gameable \u2014 a similar experience as swiping through Tinder, for example. Tea is not alone in this; Lulu shared many of the same problems. Kicky marketing and loose, user-driven definitions of bad behavior make the app more appealing, even as they obscure the gravity of the central concern.<\/p>\n They also remove the context and conditions that beget whisper networks in the first place. A 2023 study<\/a>, surveying women between the ages of 18 and 64, found that whisper networks helped \u201cparticipants make sense of their experiences and find support\u201d in workplaces where \u201csexual harassment is not taken seriously, and reporting sexual harassment is risky.\u201d On an app used by millions of strangers, the solidarity you might have with a colleague dealing with the same creepy boss, or even the inherent trust you\u2019d have with a friend warning you about a sketchy guy, is missing. The only thing that unites the users is their heterosexual womanhood, leaving lots of space for different experiences, perspectives, and intentions.<\/p>\n Catherine Falls Commercial\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no guarantee that the information you are receiving is good information or is truthful,\u201d Vanderbilt says. \u201cAre you getting genuine advice from someone who has good intentions, or are you getting vindictive advice from someone who has been hurt before?\u201d<\/p>\n The premise seems partly based on a notion that\u2019s been frequently disputed in a post-girlboss culture<\/a> \u2014 that women, simply by virtue of being women, are always looking out for each other\u2019s best interests.<\/p>\n There are even deeper contradictions, too: While Tea intends to foster community among women, it also implies that their exposure to dangerous men is something they can personally manage.<\/p>\n Mulvihill says Tea purports a \u201cneoliberal\u201d idea of women\u2019s safety as an \u201cindividual issue of risk management,\u201d as opposed to a \u201csocial and public policy issue that everyone must be engaged in.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn the surface, this looks to be creating \u2018community\u2019 and \u2018safety in numbers,\u2019 but paradoxically, risk management approaches can lead to responsibilizing individual women for managing men\u2019s violence,\u201d she says. \u201cIf they are harmed, then they might feel they \u2018ought to have known better\u2019 or \u2018ought to have managed the risk better.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, knowledge is not always a reliable defense against violence or other harmful behavior. Mulvihill relates this issue back to \u201cred flags\u201d discourse online in her 2025 study called \u201cThe New Experts of Online Dating: Feminism, Advice, and Harm<\/a>\u201d on Instagram, co-authored with Joanna Large: \u201cefforts at consciousness-raising and education are necessary, but it is important also to recognize that \u2018knowing\u2019 is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n These overarching problems \u2014 that information, even when it\u2019s accurate and trustworthy, can likely never be complete, and worse, that even perfect knowledge still may not be enough power \u2014 are inherent to all whisper networks. It\u2019s just that much more complicated when there\u2019s a company, not your colleague, fostering the murmurs.<\/p>\n Inevitably, it\u2019s women who face repercussions for wanting to engage with these resources, whether it\u2019s apps like Tea or spreadsheets about problematic men, when they backfire. Already, disgruntled men online have countered the Tea app with suggestions<\/a> for apps<\/a> that would ridicule and humiliate women. Law firms<\/a> are issuing guidance on how men who have been posted about on the app can legally retaliate.<\/p>\n If the Tea app accomplished anything, it showed that women\u2019s experiences with misogyny can\u2019t be solved with a consumer product, and sisterhood can\u2019t be sold at scale. If women could protect themselves by scrolling their phones, wouldn\u2019t we have discovered it already?<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-1574854771.jpg\"\/)
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