I suppose Ashley Madison would have been too easy a target, with Tinder and Grindr taking offence to an AIDS advocacy group running billboards that link dating apps and STDs.

The billboards (seen below) ran in Los Angeles and were paid for by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who are sticking to their guns in the face of criticism. Below from Mashable:

“In many ways, location-based mobile dating apps are becoming a digital bathhouse for millennials wherein the next sexual encounter can literally be just be a few feet away — as well as the next STD,” Whitney Engeran-Cordova, senior public health director for the foundation, said in a statement.

Of course statements like those above were never going to sit well with the dating apps, Tinder sending a cease and desist letter and Grindr removing the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s adverts from its app. Still the foundation did not back down, talking a pretty good game:

“If they had done their research they would know that we are not people who would be easily intimidated,” AIDS Healthcare Foundation president Michael Weinstein [said] “We are not against these apps — we are not trying to shut them down…But the reality of the matter is that there is a connection between these hookup sites and an increase that we’ve seen in STDs.”

Maybe some users have been listening to the sage advice dished out by these two dating app gurus – not that us responsible adults needed further reminder but safe sex is the way forward peeps, no one likes Itchy and Scratchy coming over to play.

[source:mashable]