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It was literally just a gossip site. Glad it got what it deserved, even if 4channers suck. The male version of this got shut down too.
I understand the reasoning for the public intent of the app and would generally support it within reason cause society right now amirite.. but its not so subtle real world application has now leaked a DB of catty women for whom the majority ALSO show massive red flags. This isn't a sexist men vs women critique, if there was an app for men to rate women and dox them I'd feel the same way. Love it when shitty people bamboozle themselves.
I mean it's even in the app name that it's not about protecting women and keeping them safe, it's literally about "spilling the tea" aka gossip. It's pretty gross and can be used for nonconsenual sharing of images and even slander too since there's no way to know if what someone is writing on there about someone is true or not.
Gives me no pleasure to add it to idcaboutprivacy
Free and open source—feel free to contribute.
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I can't wait till I read a similar article about porn sites; especially one where the doxxed individuals are politicians.
I mean, we kinda already ended up there with the Ashley Madison hack in 2015. Problems with that site aside, I feel like it's kinda the blueprint for everything wrong with companies that retain personally identifable info on folks. If a company collects details like your driver's license, it's not a question of if it gets out but when. There's just no way to collect that sort of data and truly keep it safe.
But, it seems like we've kinda forgotten how to learn lessons in the modern day, so I'm sure this was an isolated issue and we'll never see it's like again.
(/s on that last part, just in case that wasn't blindingly obvious.)
4channer try not be bigoted for 1 nanosecond challenge (IMPOSSIBLE) (GONE SEXUAL)
Yeah there was absolutely no need to include unfounded racist shit about “DEI hires” but it seems to be some sort of rule in 4chan that you have to be a bigoted fucknut in order to post
Friendly reminder that some services do need your ID otherwise they cannot help you or at least they need to very you (accountants, notaries, etc)
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Horrible practices by this app yes still can't help but feel anon seems to think he is a hacker for writing a python script to scrape a public database. Also scold app devs for not dealing with sensitive information carefully, release them in the most vile online platform possible so you can boast about your average python scripting skills?
This is a super weird point to focus on from that whoooole situation.
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That's exactly what hacking is.
'90s hacking movies may have given you a different idea of what cybersecurity looks like, but this is what the real world is like
Also, Google deserves a scolding here. Firebase's default configuration is absolutely atrocious. One of the few critical vulnerabilities I've seen where the system is working as intended. Dubbed the hospital gown vuknerability because they leave the backend wide open by default
Firebase's default configuration
I'm going to get on my grumpy old man soapbox. I understand making things idiot proof for end users. End users are idiots. But do we have to make things super safe for developers now too? Do we want to add a warning to rm so we don't accidentally remove the wrong directory?
Any developer who doesn't know to check permissions and accessibility on their database deserves to have their AI vibe coding bot taken away.
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What use is American personal info to a German anon?
So like, when do we get a government-run service to issue zero-knowledge proofs about us so companies have no reason to store stuff like this in the first place?
Oh aye, I am the #1 government truster, they should "not record" where I visit and should be trusted to ignore my internet history
They wouldn’t see what sites you give the tokens to — unless those sites choose to phone home, for some reason.
- You log in to the government site
- You ask for a token to prove your age/gender/whatever
- You copy the token
- You go to the age/gender-restricted site
- You provide the token
- The restricted site asks the government site how to verify any arbitrary token (but doesn’t mention your specific token)
- The restricted site verifies the token
If I had to choose between a government and a private entity to store my personal governmental records (e.g. age and name), I'd 100% choose the government first.
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Damn, if they had PII in a public bucket like that it’s criminally negligent. Well, at least it should be but I’m no lawyer
It's at least a hefty fine in the EU - enough to kill a business.
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Uh... What's the tea app?
Edit: from what I can gather based on the last link attached to this post it seems to be some kind of app for women to talk about men they've dated. Why that needs drivers license uploads is a whole other question and definitely should have raised some massive red flags for anyone thinking about using it.
"talk"
They try to get a pass on this by saying it's about "safety" and reporting creeps. But it's filled with women posting dudes and gossip. It gives me the same vibes as those sites back in the day that were shut down because they were essentially revenge porn sites. Same shit different form.
Yes, trying to warn other women about a man you dated who abused you or gave off weird vibes is definitely the same as getting your nudes or porn video of yourself leaked against your will onto the public internet for everyone to see
Yea cause that's what these sites totally were doing.
Everyone knows what these places were. 4chan are fucking scumbags but so are the people using these gossip sites. They're both cut from the same cloth
Oh hey look, the straw man is waving at you
Found this article after a quick web search: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2025/07/24/what-is-tea-the-viral-women-only-app-with-1-million-downloads/
It's an app where women upload photos of men they're dating to get "the tea" on them (red flags, catfishing, etc.). I always wondered if something like this existed. Sucks that it has to, sucks even more if their users are being targeted like this.
The reason that up until now an app like that hasn't existed is because it is an absolutely awful idea if you spend more than 10 seconds thinking about it.
It's ripe for abuse in fact I would be surprised if even half of the reports are legitimate. Isn't absolutely god awful system and whoever thought this up is an absolute prat, who seriously needs to get outside and actually experience real life and real people.
The original incarnation on Facebook got sued for posting libel and shut down. There's no judge of truth on these apps it's all she said and no he said.
Talk about adding to the toxic nature of the world. Anyone thinking we should have a digital record of social reputation isn't thinking it through.
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Sucks that it has to
It doesn't have to.
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Someone spilt the tea...
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this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2025
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