Tinder Admits It ‘Overreacted’ to Vanity Fair Article with Tweetstorm
In this month’s issue of Vanity Fair, reporter Nancy Jo Sales takes on the dark side of Tinder, the hookup app that has ushered in what one of her interview subjects describes as the “dating apocalypse.”
When Sales tweeted out a survey that found 30% of all Tinder users are married, the company’s social media team went on the attack, firing off dozens of defensive tweets in response:
"Thirty percent of all Tinder users—who are supposed to be single—are married, per a new report from GlobalWebIndex" http://t.co/d6n0YPzIYC
— Nancy Jo Sales (@nancyjosales) August 11, 2015
Here are just a few of Tinder’s retorts, including attacks against Sales’ journalistic integrity:
Hey @nancyjosales — that survey is incorrect. If you're interested in having a factual conversation, we're here. https://t.co/SLWlTLvJuf
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
–@VanityFair Little known fact: sex was invented in 2012 when Tinder was launched.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
–@VanityFair & @nancyjosales — we have lots of data. We surveyed 265,000 of our users. But it doesn’t seem like you’re interested in facts.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Our actual data says that 1.7% of Tinder users are married — not 30% as the preposterous GlobalWebIndex article indicated.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
It's disappointing that @VanityFair thought that the tiny number of people you found for your article represent our entire global userbase
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
Next time reach out to us first @nancyjosales… that’s what journalists typically do.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
And the tweet that has gotten the most attention:
Talk to our many users in China and North Korea who find a way to meet people on Tinder even though Facebook is banned.
— Tinder (@Tinder) August 11, 2015
For her part, Sales began responding to Tinder with some comments of her own:
@Tinder ok thanks…
— Nancy Jo Sales (@nancyjosales) August 11, 2015
@Tinder reach out to you before I do a retweet? To what are you referring?
— Nancy Jo Sales (@nancyjosales) August 11, 2015
@Tinder not clear: are you suggesting journalists need your okay to write about you?
— Nancy Jo Sales (@nancyjosales) August 12, 2015
@Tinder journalists are often called unfair for doing their jobs
— Nancy Jo Sales (@nancyjosales) August 12, 2015
On Wednesday, Tinder issued a statement that stopped short of apologizing for its tweetstorm against Sales and Vanity Fair, but did acknowledge that they “overreacted”:
We have a passionate team that truly believes in Tinder. While reading a recent Vanity Fair article about today’s dating culture, we were saddened to see that the article didn’t touch upon the positive experiences that the majority of our users encounter daily. Our intention was to highlight the many statistics and amazing stories that are sometimes left unpublished, and, in doing so, we overreacted.
What’s even worse? Tinder actually pitched its tweetstorm to BuzzFeed before it happened:
@summeranne I in fact got a pitch from a PR person that Tinder was about to tweet storm, and I should watch for it.
— Claudia Koerner (@ClaudiaKoerner) August 12, 2015
[Photo via Tinder]
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