It's exactly like Lulu which shutdown due to privacy issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lulu_(app)

Every couple years someone tries this and it immediately turns into a cesspool because no matter the good intentions of the makers, it attracts the worst kind of person as active users.

It gets shut down, everyone forgets, then someone eventually has a brilliant idea...

It come from a place of sincerity but defenders imagine everyone would use it for the same reasons they would: Warning people of genuine threats in the dating world. They would never use it for gossip, or revenge, or creative writing, etc. so they don't imagine others would.

But at scale, if generously only 0.1% of women in America are bad actors that would weaponize this app, that's over 150k people (not to mention men slipping past security). And the thing about bad actors is that one bad actor can have an outsized effect.

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junto 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

These kinds of apps are already in existence across many cities in the world in the form of informal, invite-only WhatsApp and Telegram groups.

The problem is the demand is there for such groups and I see posts that range from, “this guy tried to get me to get in his car”, or “man exposed himself to me”, to “man has twice approached children at my child’s school” or “I was drugged and raped after meeting with X on Y dating app”.

Lots of sexual attackers are known to multiple women.

Fact is that in lots of countries rape kits don’t get processed, it’s hard to secure a conviction, many serial sex offenders walk free and many women don’t want to go through a reliving of their trauma in court.

As a result these kinds of groups are very useful, not just for women who are actively dating, but for women who are simply existing in day-to-day public life. We have a president and a supreme court judge who both have been accused of serious sex offenses and nothing happened.

Is there a chance that some man who has done nothing wrong, gets accused by a woman in these groups? Yes of course there is a chance that could happen, but many would prefer to not take the risk of dating someone that has been accused of being a sex offender and the vast majority of posts with confirmation by multiple women confirm that bias.

These groups help keep women safer than without them. There’s a good reason why many women just don’t date at all any more. Covid lockdowns reminded them that they don’t really need it and it’s more hassle than it’s worth.

Sadly the vast majority of men are fine (not all men), but not enough call out the bad and dangerous behavior of a minority of their friends and peers. Until that happens women will be drawn to these apps and groups to try to be safer and not be a part of a sex crime statistic.

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prisenco 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

"invite-only" is key because it requires a trust relationship, if not directly then through minimal degrees of separation. While not perfect they can basically work while apps for the general population cannot because there is no trust between the users.

	▲	junto 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed. This trust is a critical point. The invitation mechanism is a web of trust. Not infallible but better than these apps that try to centralize that through identification.

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carabiner 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Is there a chance that some man who has done nothing wrong, gets accused by a woman in these groups? Yes of course there is a chance that could happen, but many would prefer to not take the risk of dating someone that has been accused of being a sex offender and the vast majority of posts with confirmation by multiple women confirm that bias.

The concern of false accusation appears to be... brushed aside. Are you a man? How would you feel if you were falsely accused? Knowing that this could snowball into being doxxed, having your employer informed etc. Innocent men have been jailed for this.

	▲	chneu 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Innocent people have killed themselves over this stuff. The mob don't care.
	▲	derbOac 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Based on some of the things I've seen in my professional and personal circles, I'd say there's much more than a chance, and the level of potential distortion is probably much greater, with more consequences, than some are acknowledging.

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carabiner 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There needs to be a startup accelerator or VC that solely focuses on recycled ideas. We could have an app that gathers strangers for dinners, one for reviewing people, and so on. Since all of these gained traction at some point, the idea would be you get 1-2 quick puffs of these discarded cigarette butts before selling or shutting down. Just vibe code it, go viral, collect some subscriber fees, then close due to whatever reason.

	▲	bigfatkitten 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		We’ve already got one: YC https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707495
	▲	burnt-resistor 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		TechStars already exists.