Grindr wants Olympic athletes to be able to use the cruising app safely and discretely.
The company announced Monday on its blog that it will be taking a number of precautions to safeguard competitors in the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, many of whom may be from one of the 60 countries where being queer is a criminal offense.
While the Olympics are taking place from February 6 to 22, users will not be able to use the Explore and Roam feature to browse profiles within the Village — the feature will be turned off, and no users outside this area will be able to view any of the profiles or message users inside.
Grindr will also be disabling the Show Distance feature on profiles, which allows other users to see how far away they are from one another. According to the blog, this feature will automatically be turned off — but if people wish to share their approximate distance, they can.
Additionally, Grindr users will have access to features that are normally behind a paywall, like unlimited disappearing messages, the ability to unsend messages, and screenshot blocking. Private videos, which allow one view, will also be "turned off entirely."
"The Olympic Games bring heightened visibility, which can create real safety risks for LGBTQ+ athletes, especially those who are not out or come from countries where being LGBTQ+ is dangerous or illegal," AJ Balance, Grindr's chief product officer, said in a press release. "These temporary changes are about reducing that risk and giving users greater control of their privacy while keeping the app available."
In recent years, the social networking app Grindr has taken steps to protect the LGBTQ+ athletes competing in the Olympics after a journalist published an article in The Daily Beast during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games that was intended to provide a look into the Olympic Village hookup culture.
That article came under fire for revealing potentially identifying information for some of the athletes using Grindr. Mic labeled the article "homophobic" and LGBTQ+ advocates, like Athlete Ally's Hudson Taylor, called it "as unethical as it is dangerous." The story was eventually taken down, and the publication released a statement saying that the article "did not uphold a deep set of The Daily Beast's values."
Since then, Grindr has upped the safeguards for Olympic users, implementing stricter guardrails during the 2022 and 2024 Olympic Games.
