Grindr saw activity spike, surge in fake profiles in Milwaukee during Republican National Convention

Over 1,000 users of the gay dating app reported a Grindr outage in area around the time the convention, which witnessed several homophobic and transphobic remarks, was happening.

Representational Image | Flickr

New Delhi: Milwaukee saw a notable surge in activity on the gay dating app Grindr this week, coinciding with the Republican National Convention (RNC) in town.

According to Downdetector, a website that monitors online service status, at around 4 pm Tuesday, over 1,000 users reported a Grindr outage in the Milwaukee area. Grindr also reportedly faced issues Thursday, the final day of the RNC, not only in Milwaukee but also in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Despite these reports, Grindr’s official status updates indicate that the app hasn’t experienced an outage since May.

Users in Milwaukee noted a significant increase in blank and fake profiles during this period, raising questions about the sudden spike in activity and the app’s functionality during the convention.

Meanwhile, the first three days of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee witnessed homophobic and transphobic remarks. Over a dozen speakers reportedly have negatively addressed issues related to gender and sexuality in their speeches.

In the past week, Republicans from all over the country convened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to officially endorse their candidates for the 2024 election: former President Trump and newly chosen vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance.

Senator Ron Johnson began with a speech filled with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric while criticising the Democratic platform, stating that it supports a “fringe agenda” involving biological males competing in girls’ sports and the “sexualization and indoctrination of children”.

The party leaders even invited North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who gained national attention and faced resignation demands in 2021 for referring to homosexuality and “transgenderism” as “filth”.

Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, also criticised “Left-wing activists”, saying they are “teaching our kids that there are 57 genders” and “can’t even define what a woman is”.

On the other hand, several speakers at the convention, such as RNC co-chair Lara Trump (the former president’s daughter-in-law), American model Amber Rose, and Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, made efforts to reach out to gay Americans.

Grenell, who is gay and served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s tenure as the US president said, “Trump doesn’t care if you’re gay or straight, Black, brown or white, or what gender you are..He knows that we are all Americans and that it’s time to put America first.”