Controversy and Criticisms
A July 2000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study described sites including Gaydar as contributing to clusters of sexually transmitted infections. Other critics allege that it facilitates barebacking (anal intercourse without a condom).
Media attention was drawn in 2003 when the website was used by Labour Party MP Chris Bryant, and in 2006, when married Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Mark Oaten used it to find gay sexual partners.
In February 2007, a newspaper revealed that a high-ranking officer of the Greek military had a profile on Gaydar. He was prosecuted, and an MP brought the matter in the Parliament of Greece, accusing the Minister for National Defence of allowing "inappropriate promotions" in the armed forces. The Greek LGBT community protested, but the officer claimed the profile was not his.
In 2011, Gaydar re-introduced "filtering" in chat rooms and member-to-member private messages, where lines containing competitors' brand names would appear to be sent but would not be delivered.
Read more about this topic: Gaydar (website)
Famous quotes containing the words controversy and/or criticisms:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)