Sex Workers Say That Dating App Tinder Is Shutting Down Their Personal Profiles (Buzzfeed)

Read the full article by Hannah Al-Othman at Buzzfeed.com

Soliciting is banned on the app, but sex workers say that even when they make clear they are only using Tinder for dating, their profiles get taken down.

Sex workers claim that dating app Tinder is discriminating against them by banning them from using the service.

In both Europe and North America, sex workers reported finding their accounts shut down, with Tinder offering no explanation other than that they had breached the app’s terms of service.

Tinder bans soliciting on its platform, but the women who BuzzFeed News spoke to said they were using the account purely for noncommercial dating purposes.

They said they had mentioned in their profiles that they were sex workers — but only because they wanted to be up front with people who they matched with.

Clementine, a 30-year-old sex worker based in Vancouver, said she recently had her account shut down after updating her bio to include her job as an escort.

On her profile, Clementine made clear that she was not looking for clients on the app, but her account was still shut down.

Clementine read the terms and conditions, which said soliciting was banned, but she said: “I clearly wasn’t soliciting.”

After she contacted Tinder she received an email back which said she had violated the website’s terms — but despite going back to the company for further clarification, she received only stock responses, which said she would not be able to open another Tinder account.

Clementine said she thinks Tinder may be shutting down sex worker profiles to avoid falling foul of Trump’s SESTA/FOSTA legislation.

In April, President Donald Trump signed a bill made from a combination of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or SESTA, and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, known as FOSTA, which gave law enforcement officials sweeping new powers to go after internet platforms used by traffickers, including making those platforms liable for the content that users publish — with sex workers reporting devastating consequences.

“They’re an American company and they can be prosecuted because of the anti-trafficking law – clearly I’m [not] being trafficked,” Clementine said. “It’s bullshit.”

“Maybe Tinder is just scared,” she added, “but it’s applied that to my whole profession. If I was a yoga teacher saying I wasn’t looking for yoga clients they would have let me say that.”

Tinder declined to answer BuzzFeed News’ questions on these users’ account and whether they had been kicked off the app due to this legislation. Instead, the company pointed to its community guidelines, which prohibit “promoting or advocating for commercial sexual services, human trafficking or other non-consensual sexual acts”.