I’m sure everyone has heard of the Tea app by now. It is a mobile app for women only, where girls can post about men that they’ve met in order to get information from others in a “safe space”. Women can anonymously share details, reviews, and experiences with men they are dating or considering dating. In theory, it’s a great app that has the potential to keep women informed and possibly prevent them from getting into a toxic or unhealthy relationship. Sean Cook, the founder of the app, created the Tea app after his mother had been catfished and became involved with men who had criminal records while online dating. This can all be found on Tea’s website in the section titled “about”. He realized that dating apps took minimal effort to keep women safe while online dating, so he took matters into his own hands. However, it’s most definitely not being used for the intended reason. Instead, it’s been used for cyberbullying and has created more issues than it’s solved.

The Tea app is not tea. It gives people a way to anonymously say whatever they want about people they potentially don’t like, have had a falling out with, or even have had a bad dating history with. Individuals have the opportunity to make comments, give “green or red flag” ratings, and even attach photos—but nobody will know who posted them. This means that they can act with absolutely no consequences.

How the Tea App is Negatively Impacting Mental Health:

According to the National Institutes of Health, “The participants who experienced cyberbullying were more than 4 times as likely to report thoughts of suicide and attempts as those who didn’t. This association diminished but remained significant when the researchers adjusted for other factors known to affect thoughts of suicide and attempts. These include family conflict, racial discrimination, parental monitoring, and being supported at school.

​​The researchers also found that experiencing cyberbullying increased the risk of thoughts of suicide and attempts independent of in-person bullying.”

This means that the kids who are being posted and rated on Tea could be at risk of potentially suicidal thoughts. And the statistic says that the association diminished but remained significant after including other factors that can cause thoughts of suicide and attempts. However, as a high school student, there are probably a lot of stressors that contribute to their mental health that can be piled on top of what people are saying about them online. Overall, if Tea were being used correctly and there was a way to authenticate and verify the information, it would be a very useful tool. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t use the app that way and will post things that might or might not be true. Which means even if someone was trying to use the app correctly, they couldn’t because they wouldn’t know what to believe.

Data Breach Concerns:

On top of that, Tea recently had a massive data breach, leaking thousands of people’s information. The breach led to Apple removing the app from the App Store because it did not follow its guidelines.

TechCrunch, a website that covers the technology industry, says “Reached for comment, Apple confirmed the apps’ removal, saying it removed Tea Dating Advice and TeaOnHer from the App Store because they failed to meet Apple’s requirements around content moderation and user privacy. The company also said it saw an excessive number of user complaints and negative reviews, which included complaints of minors’ personal information being posted in these apps.”

This shows how Tea is not only indirectly promoting cyberbullying, but they are also not taking the proper precautions any app should take when requiring personal information like an ID.

An article on BBC titled Tea App: My ex stalked me, so I joined a ‘dating safety’ app. Then my address was leaked by Jacqui Wakefield, who tells the story of a girl named Sally who joined the app to stay safe while dating, but only ended up in a scarier situation says “The app was founded in 2023 but climbed the charts in the US to the number one spot in July this year. It reportedly attracted more than a million users.

​​Sally, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, thought it was interesting to read what was being said about men in her area. But she found it “gossip-y” and that some of the information on it was unreliable.

​In late July, the app was hacked. Over 70,000 images were leaked and posted on the online message board 4chan – including IDs and selfies of users, which were meant to have been for verification purposes only and ‘deleted immediately’.

​​The leak was seized on by misogynist groups online, and within hours, several websites had been created to humiliate the women who’d signed up.”

This shows how there are thousands of women who have had their selfies and I.D. ‘s leaked, even though they were meant to be deleted after the initial verification process was done. Websites were created by misogynists to bring humiliation to the women who got the app. Even if any of these women were not trying to insult or bring negativity towards anyone on the app, they were still harmed in the process.

App Infiltration:

In addition to large data breaches that exposed thousands of women’s identities, men are also finding ways to infiltrate the app to read, comment, and post about themselves and others. This essentially undermines the app’s overall objective, as it allows users to spread false information, whether positive or negative, about anyone they choose.

An anonymous San Marcos High School student said, “We photoshop pictures to make ourselves look like girls, and we submit them to the Tea App.”

They overall told us that men are finding ways into the app however they can. Even if it means that they have to edit themselves to look like a female to do it. Altogether, this means that the App that is supposedly helping women date safely is just making men work harder to find ways around it.

In conclusion, Tea initially aimed to improve women’s safety in the online dating world. It was a great idea, and if they could have made the app more reliable, it would be an amazing tool for women to use. However, people started to take things too far by making slanderous accusations, women had their personal data leaked, where websites were made in order to humiliate them, and the app was eventually taken off the App Store because it didn’t follow the guidelines. If you have the app downloaded, I encourage you to delete it because, at this point, it is not doing any more good than it is bad.