{"id":62197,"date":"2015-09-29T19:46:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T11:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=62197"},"modified":"2016-05-31T10:30:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T14:30:15","slug":"dating-apps-fire-back-at-billboards-linking-std-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/09\/29\/dating-apps-fire-back-at-billboards-linking-std-spread\/","title":{"rendered":"Dating apps fire back at billboards linking STD spread"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Shutterstock<\/a>
(Shutterstock image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LOS ANGELES \u2013 An AIDS health care group is defending an ad campaign in Los Angeles that links popular dating apps with the spread of sexual transmitted diseases.<\/p>\n

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation targets Tinder, a location-based dating app and Grindr, a similar site for gay men, in billboards and bus benches that are aimed at reminding users about the risks of casual sex and offering free STD tests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways, location-based mobile dating apps are becoming a digital bathhouse for millennials wherein the next sexual encounter can literally just be a few feet away \u2013 as well as the next STD,\u201d Whitney Engeran-Cordova, senior public health director for the foundation, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Billboards show a silhouette of a man labeled \u201cTinder\u201d face-to-face with a woman\u2019s silhouette labeled \u201cchlamydia.\u201d A silhouette of a man labeled \u201cGrindr\u201d faces a male silhouette labeled \u201cgonorrhea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reaction from the dating apps was swift.<\/p>\n

Within two hours of the first billboard going up, Grindr pulled commercials that the foundation pays for on the dating site to promote free STD testing, the foundation said.<\/p>\n

In less than 24 hours, Tinder sent a cease and desist letter claiming the campaign falsely associates the dating app with the spread of venereal diseases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese unprovoked and wholly unsubstantiated accusations are made to irreparably damage Tinder\u2019s reputation in an attempt to encourage others to take an HIV test offered by your organization,\u201d a lawyer for Tinder wrote.<\/p>\n

The foundation sent a letter to Tinder denying that it disparaged the company and saying it would not remove the reference to the app.<\/p>\n

The campaign is intended to draw attention to rising STD rates that the foundation said coincides with the popularity of the sites that make hook-ups easier, said Michael Weinstein, the foundation\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s logical, if you can be hooked up with someone in an urban area within minutes,\u201d he said, \u201cof course you\u2019re going to have to more STDs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email messages sent to Tinder and Grindr for comment were not immediately returned.<\/p>\n

The signs are currently on a dozen billboards in Los Angeles and 45 bus benches, Weinstein said.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles-based foundation, which provides health care to HIV and AIDS patients and free sexual disease testing, plans to also put them up in New York City, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2013 An AIDS health care group is defending an ad campaign in Los Angeles that links popular dating …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":18365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,5],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-62197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","category-technology","tag-original","mauthors-brian-melley","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}