NATO Group Catfished Soldiers to Prove a Point About Privacy; Wired, February 18, 2019

Issie Lapowsky, Wired; NATO Group Catfished Soldiers to Prove a Point About Privacy

"For the military group that OK'd the research, the experiment effectively acted as a drill. But for the rest of us—and certainly for the social media platforms implicated in the report—the researchers hope it will serve as concrete evidence of why a fuzzy concept like privacy matters and what steps can be taken to protect it."

The Other Olympic Sport in Rio: Swiping; Daily Beast, 8/11/16

Nico Hines, Daily Beast; The Other Olympic Sport in Rio: Swiping:

"Editor's Note: A number of readers complained to The Daily Beast after the publication of the original iteration of this story. We take such complaints seriously because a central part of The Daily Beast's mission is to fight for full equality and equal treatment for LGBT people around the world. Publishing an article that in any way could be seen as homophobic is contrary to our mission.

There was legitimate concern that the original version of this story might out gay male athletes, even by implication, or compromise their safety. This was never our reporter’s intention, of course. No names were ever used and some of the profiles described were of straight women. But there was a concern that even mentioning the home nation of some gay athletes could compromise their safety. We apologize for potentially jeopardizing that safety in any way. As a result, we have removed all descriptions of the men and women’s profiles that we previously described.

The concept for the piece was to see how dating and hook-up apps were being used in Rio by athletes. It just so happened that Nico had many more responses on Grindr than apps that cater mostly to straight people, and so he wrote about that. Had he received straight invitations, he would have written about those. He never claimed to be anyone he was not, did not offer anything to anyone, and immediately admitted that he was a journalist whenever he was asked who he was.

Some readers have read Nico as mocking or sex-shaming those on Grindr. We do not feel he did this in any way. But it’s up to us to deliver stories that are so clear, they can’t be misinterpreted—and we clearly fell short of that standard in this article.

Accordingly, we have made some editorial changes to the article, responding to readers' concerns, and are again sorry for any upset the original version of this piece inspired."

—John Avlon, Editor in Chief