TikTok Spies on Your Grindr Swipes: When Will China Spill the GOP Tea?

The New Surveillance State (Sponsored by Your Phone)

So, the latest privacy scandal: TikTok, via a third‑party tracker, was quietly monitoring which apps you use on your phone, including Grindr.[1][2][3] Not just “Hey, this person has a dating app installed.” No, it knew *when* you used Grindr, what you did there, and even what you put in your shopping cart elsewhere.[1][2][4] All neatly bundled up and sent off, probably to some server farm in China, for the usual holy trinity of “personalized advertising, analytics, and security.”[1][3][4]

Let that sink in for a second. Your video app knows which gay dating app you’re on, how often you open it, and what you’re looking at. That’s not “personalization.” That’s a dossier. And under EU law, sexual orientation is specially protected data, because it can be used to discriminate, harass, or blackmail people. But TikTok didn’t ask. It just took.

How the “Free” App Really Pays You

TikTok’s defense, via the privacy group noyb’s complaint, is that this data was shared through AppsFlyer, an Israeli marketing analytics company that hooks into apps and tracks cross‑app behavior. Grindr, apparently, handed over that info without a valid legal basis under GDPR, and TikTok then used it to build a detailed profile of the user’s online life.

And here’s the kicker: when the user asked TikTok for all their personal data, TikTok didn’t give it all at first. They sent a “download tool” that only included what TikTok thought was “relevant,” not the full picture. Only after repeated requests did TikTok admit it had Grindr usage, LinkedIn activity, and shopping behavior. That’s not transparency; that’s a shell game with your private life.

The “Who’s Watching Who?” Joke Writes Itself

Now, the obvious question: if TikTok (owned by China’s ByteDance) can see which apps you use, including Grindr, then in theory, that data could end up in Chinese hands. We already know that Chinese employees at TikTok can access U.S. user data under certain approval protocols, and that regulators in Europe and the U.S. are deeply worried about data flowing to China.

So, let’s do the math. TikTok tracks Grindr usage. Grindr is a gay dating app. That means TikTok can infer sexual orientation and sex life for millions of users. And if that data is accessible to Chinese authorities, then, in theory, they could know which American politicians, lobbyists, or conservative figures are secretly using Grindr.

Which brings us to the punchline: when are the Chinese going to release the list of Republican politicians on Grindr?

Seriously, think about it. We’ve spent years screaming about “Chinese surveillance” and “TikTok spying,” but we never seem to ask: what juicy, embarrassing, politically explosive stuff is actually in that data? If the Chinese government really wanted to destabilize the U.S. political scene, they wouldn’t need to hack the Pentagon. They could just leak the “TikTok–Grindr VIP user list” and watch the whole right‑wing moral panic implode in a glorious, hypocritical fireball.

The Real Hypocrisy Is the Data Itself

Of course, the Chinese government hasn’t said a word about this latest tracking scandal, and TikTok is treating it as a “privacy compliance issue,” not a national security leak. But the irony is delicious: the same politicians who scream about “TikTok spying for China” are the ones who’ve spent decades normalizing the idea that every app can track your every move, as long as it’s for ads.

They’re not mad about surveillance. They’re mad about *who* is doing it. They’re fine with Facebook, Google, and Amazon building God‑like profiles of everyone, but the second a Chinese company does the same thing, it’s an existential threat to democracy. Meanwhile, the data that could expose their own closeted hypocrisy is sitting there, waiting, in a server farm somewhere.[1][3][6]

So What Do We Actually Do?

From a policy standpoint, this is a mess. Regulators in Austria and elsewhere are now investigating TikTok, Grindr, and AppsFlyer for violating GDPR, and could impose big fines. The EU is already cracking down on TikTok for inadequate researcher access and data transfers to China.

But the real fix isn’t just fines. It’s a simple rule: apps should not be allowed to share sensitive data like sexual orientation, location, and dating behavior with third parties unless the user gives explicit, informed consent — and even then, only if there’s a real, narrow purpose, not just “ads and analytics.”

And maybe, just maybe, we should stop pretending that the only danger is foreign governments. The real danger is that *everyone* — from TikTok to Grindr to your local weather app — is building a dossier on your sex life, your shopping habits, and your political leanings, and selling it to the highest bidder.

Final Thought: The List Exists (Republicans are stacking these lists up, aren’t they?)

So, to answer the original question: when are the Chinese going to tell us which Republican politicians are using Grindr?

They probably never will. Because the real joke isn’t that they *might* release it. The real joke is that the list already exists, and half the people screaming about “TikTok spying” are probably on it.