It sounds like the plot of a Black Mirror episode. Single, straight women log into a dating app, but not to meet men. Instead, they can screen local guys, using photos and user-reported “red flags.” The app is designed to make the experience of finding a partner less risky, but it quickly culminates in disaster.

This is already the trajectory of the Tea app, which experienced a recent surge in popularity. It reached No. 1 on the Top Free Apps chart late last month in the App Store and remains in the top 10. The app currently boasts over 6 million users, per its website. Exclusively designed for women, the “dating safety tool” is a cross between safety network Citizen and review hub Yelp, allowing users to post anonymous reviews of men, reverse image-search their photos, and run background checks. Some of these features are paywalled, including unlimited searches for $15 a month. Its founder, Sean Cook, a former Salesforce product manager, created the app in 2023 after witnessing his mother’s “terrifying experience with online dating,” from being catfished to unknowingly meeting men with criminal records. 


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 who identified serious privacy and defamation concerns, both in and out of the app.

While Tea prohibits screenshots, TikTok users have managed to post their screens while scrolling through the app. Men, whether through word-of-mouth or accessing the app themselves, have also been able to see and respond to their reviews. In addition to collecting data to potentially share with advertisers, Tea’s privacy policy states that the company may share users’ information to “respond to lawful requests and legal processes.” As reporter Amanda Hoover wrote for Business Insider, this caveat “could open women who think they’re posting in good faith to defamation suits by disgruntled men whose reputations suffer by what has been posted about them, even if it’s accurate.” It was almost too predictable when Tea reported a cyberattack on July 25 that exposed users’ personal information, direct messages, and selfies. As a result, its messaging function has been suspended.

Ultimately, the “name and shame” premise of the app has drawn the........

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