Grindr is the second most banned social app: how do you unblock it?

Update: On May 22, 2024, Access Now confirmed after publication that 13 countries will actually ban Grindr in 2024, as Malaysia joined the list in April.

Grindr, the world’s largest dating app for the LGBTQ+ community, is the second most blocked social media platform outside India.

This means that gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in 13 countries around the world cannot access the popular app unless they use one of the best VPN services.

This is one of the worrying findings in the annual report of the digital rights organization Access Now. Let’s take a closer look at what’s at stake and what steps we need to take to get around the restrictions.

Grindr blocks continue to rise

If Check out Now’s latest report can reveal, there is a growing list of countries specifically targeting LGBTQ+ people by imposing blocks on platforms like Grindr.

Jordan and Tanzania both issued new blocks on Grindr last year, adding themselves to a list of already 10 countries censoring the popular app. Iran, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the UAE have been blocking Grindr for years. People in China, Indonesia and Pakistan have also been forced to use secure VPN software to access the platform for a while.

“The widespread blocking of Grindr – the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people – is a particularly telling indicator that authorities are using blocking to deliberately marginalize specific groups of people,” researchers wrote.

Grindr bans have gone hand in hand with a global wave of intolerance against the LGBTQ+ community. In Jordan, for example, authorities blocked Grindr for the first time in 2023 attacks on queer people increased on political banks and beyond.

Worse still, this worrying wave of blockages is also showing no signals to stop. Malaysia joined the list of countries banning Grindr on April 17, 2024, bringing the toll to 13 countries worldwide that censor the popular queer dating app.

Felicia Anthonio, #KeepItOn Manager at Access Now, believes this dire situation could even worsen as the year progresses. She told me, “As anti-LGBTQ+ laws make their way into more and more countries around the world, censorship of LGBTQ+ websites and blocking of apps like Grindr will most likely continue into 2024.”

Overall, Access Now describes 2023 as the “worst year of internet outages ever.” In addition to widespread outages in fixed and mobile connectivity, 53 platform blockages were enforced in 25 countries throughout the year. That is a significant increase compared to the 39 blocks that took place in 29 countries the year before.

In 2023, India was again the largest contributor to service-based blocking orders globally. These orders rose from two censored apps in 2022 to 14 platforms last year. Furthermore, three of the four countries that implemented their first shutdowns in 2023 also engaged in platform blocking. These include Kenya blocking Telegram, Nepal banning TikTok and Suriname opposing Meta services (Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram).

This spike in platform blocking may indicate that authorities view such a practice as more acceptable and less harmful than a total internet blackout, Access Now researchers explain. Still, “the disruption of platforms often disproportionately impacts targeted and marginalized communities or people who rely on them as their only viable means of accessing information and communicating with loved ones, colleagues, customers, news sources and service providers,” the report said.

For example, Turkey blocked Twitter for only two days in 2023, but that was when people needed it most: in the wake of the devastating earthquake that killed more than 15,000 people in both Turkey and Syria.

According to VPN company Surfshark, at least 50 countries have reportedly pulled the plug on popular social media services such as Facebook, Instagram,

How to bypass the Grindr ban with a VPN

A VPN, short for Virtual Private Network, is security software that encrypts Internet connections while spoofing your real IP address. This last skill is exactly what you need to get around government-imposed geographic restrictions, as it tricks your ISP into thinking you’re in a completely different country in seconds.

Using a Grindr VPN is also beneficial in countries where the app is not blocked to increase your online privacy. Like similar online dating apps, Grindr collects sensitive personal information, such as location data and IP addresses, that can be used against you, especially in countries where LGBTQ+ people are under attack.

Below are the simple steps you can take to use Grindr with a VPN:

1. Download your chosen VPN app. I recommend checking out our best free VPN guide to find the most reliable freebie out there.
2. Connect to a server located in a country where Grindr is available.
3. Start using Grindr as you normally would, but with more privacy!

However, it’s worth noting that Jordanian law criminalizes the use of VPNs, proxy services, and Tor browsers to bypass censorship. While downloading and using a circumvention tool is not illegal in itself, using a fictitious IP address to access blocked social media platforms and censored foreign media can be weaponized by authorities.

That’s especially worrying given that, as Access Now noted, last year’s cybercrime law came at a time when Jordan was blocking more and more websites.