A Tea App Competitor Aimed at Men Is Also a Hot Mess

Oh, did you forget about the Tea app since I brought you my last dispatch a few days ago? Lucky you, but I'm about to burst your bubble: The drama surrounding the security breach of the woman-only app, which operates like Yelp and allows women to anonymously rate and review real men, is ongoing.

If you check the Apple App Store right now, you'll see that a men's version of the app, TeaOnHer, is occupying the second-highest spot on the Lifestyle charts, just under the original Tea itself. It seems we, as a society, have learned nothing from the backlash against Tea, but we've also learned nothing from the data breaches the women who signed up for it experienced. You guessed it: TeaOnHer can be breached, too.

An into to TeaOnHer and its possible breach

First, what is TeaOnHer? It's simply a men's version of Tea-made by a different company-the app that allows women to rate and review men, upload men's photos, and brand them "red flag men" or "green flag men," all without the men being able to access the platform, let alone respond. TOH is similar, but with some key feature differences (more on that below).

Two weeks ago, Tea shot to the top of the Apple App Store charts when it experienced a moment of viral fame after operating quietly for two years. That was followed swiftly by backlash, which included a coordinated data breach that resulted in a leak of thousands of verification photos of female users, primarily government IDs. A second breach, potentially involving even more sensitive information in the form of private DMs, came a few days later. Then, at the end of July, the Tea was truly served, by which I mean it now faces a class action lawsuit over the whole ordeal.

None of that stopped Tea's momentum; like I said, it's still topping the app charts. It also didn't deter competitors from entering the market, which is how we ended up with TeaOnHer, which went as far as to steal Tea's tagline, to say nothing of its entire premise. Where Tea says it's "helping women date safe," TeaOnHer says it's "helping men date safe." Men can anonymously rate and review women on there-but, according to TechCrunch, that's not the only Tea experience TeaOnHer is trying to let its users replicate. The men who downloaded TOH are also able to have their data breached.

I tried to reach out to the seller listed in the App Store, Newville Media Corporation, for a comment and will update if I hear back, but the gist of the TechCrunch report is that there is "at least one security flaw that allows anyone access to data belonging to TeaOnHer app users, including their usernames and associated email addresses, as well as driver's licenses and selfies that users uploaded to TeaOnHer." The identification images are publicly accessible web addresses, no less, so anyone who wants to see them simply needs to find the link.

Tea on TeaOnHer

One notable difference between Tea and TOH is that TeaOnHer advertises its use as a "safety" tool, but it's not as comprehensive as Tea. Yes, Tea allows women to say whatever they want about men whether it's true or not, but it also has features that help users run background checks, cross-reference sex offender lists, reverse-image search, search records by phone number, and find criminal and court records. The idea is not just to identify catfish, fraudsters, and two-timers, but real-deal abusers, to the extent possible. TeaOnHer, meanwhile, advertises that its "community helps you identify concerning behaviors patterns, safety red flags, and positive dating experiences from verified sources." Basically, it borrows Tea's anonymous gossip feature, but not the sturdier safety resources.

It has just a two-star rating on the App Store after 184 ratings, which I assumed would be from a bunch of reviews denouncing the basic "Yelp for people" premise, but my assumption was wrong. Users are actually annoyed about the app's functionality, saying they can't create accounts or stay logged in. Multiple people report a time-out issue that has precluded them from access despite uploading their verification images. I didn't see any reviews decrying how unsavory people-rating apps are, nor any mentioning the reports of insecure data storage.

So, it seems no one has learned that providing a platform for people to make anonymous accusations against individuals who have no access to any type of due process is dangerous and no one has learned that uploading a verification image to such a platform is also dangerous. We continue to go around and around. Perhaps next week there will be a new development in this saga, but for now, enjoy your weekend.