Author’s note - This is the long forsaken awaited second part of my 2019 post Arrur Makkah Re’eihu B’Seter – Part 1: Good Faith. I highly recommend reading the first half of that post (HERE).
I began writing this post a few days before Tisha B’Av, which is when the Tea app controversy erupted. It discusses Lashon Hara and Sinas Chinam, so it was a highly appropriate nine-days topic. As I wrote it, it expanded into a two-part essay and wasn’t ready for posting before Tisha B’Av. I suppose you can consider it a pre-Ellul post.
The Coldplay scandal in Boston hasn’t even chilled and there is a new one brewing.
What’s brewing?
Tea. As in the controversial Tea Dating Advice app.
As opposed to Coldplay, the Tea is brewing very hot. (Perhaps we can combine the two events and call them the Boston-Tea Party.)
Trust me, I never heard of Coldplay until this scandal erupted, and I hadn’t heard of the Tea app until this scandal as well. So, what is this Tea app?
Firstly, let me say we are discussing a phone app in the secular world for the general (non-Jewish) population. There is nothing religious or Jewish about this app.
Apparently, it’s an exclusive online forum only for women. In this forum, the women can post pictures and information about whatever men they have dated (or have been engaged or married to) so that other women who are considering involvement with these people can be informed about what is in store. There does not seem to be any restrictions about what kind of information can be posted. Ladies can post details about men including their photos, addresses, phone numbers, where they work, and even their intimate behavior.
The justification for this kind of databasing is to expose potential predators, people with criminal records, or otherwise dangerous or unbalanced people to make the wild dating experience with random strangers safer for the womenfolk. Sure, a member can write nice things about an individual and possibly recommend him to the world, but this doesn’t really seem to be its purpose.
Although it is not the government Sex Offender Registry, it comes darn near close to it. In short, it is the non-Jewish version of JCW’s Wall of Shame (WOS). It also carries many of the ethical issues that I had discussed in several previous posts about the despicable WOS. Some are:
• The person profiled is not necessarily informed that he is profiled.
• The person profiled has no say in the matter of his being profiled. No way to protest or demand to be taken out of the app.
• The person profiled has no access to the site to see personally what is written about him (this one did not apply to WOS).
• The person profiled cannot enter any comments, updates, corrections, complaints or anything similar or defend themselves in any way.
• The women who post about men do not have to identify themselves.
• A profile, once posted, is displayed for eternity. As long as the poster doesn’t take it down, she could be in a coma or worse and that profile will still be sitting there available to the entire world. The Internet is the Eternal-net.
Of course, the biggest excuse for unbridled slander (Lashon Hara) is that it’s all "a toelles". It’s to make people safe. Just like the JCW Wall of Shame and all those articles that used to be in the In the News section of the Magen-Israel.org site. And, chas v’shalom, should any man who is featured on these sites, who are undoubtedly all genocidal child-killers, be allowed to challenge what is written and stand up for themselves.
Just to be up to date, both JCW’s WOS and the In the News section of Magen-Israel.org are currently offline. JCW went comatose in 2020 after Shana Aaronson left them but they were still accessible online including their wretched WOS until 2023. Finally, sometime that year, the entire site went offline. As for the Magen-Israel site, which is still in business, to Mrs. Aaronson’s credit, someone was able to talk sense into her to remove the In the News items. Kol Hakavod!
Back to our Tea party.
As I said, the Tea app is an exclusive app for women only. Men cannot join. In order to be a member of the app, an applicant has to prove that they are indeed a woman. This is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s day and age. Just ask Candace Owens and Brigitte Macron.
Hence, in order to verify an applicant’s womanhood, they must provide either a copy of their driver’s license, which typically states the holder’s gender, and/or provide a selfie picture or maybe a DNA sample or whatever. These proofs (not the DNA) are uploaded to the site, but don’t worry ladies, they are secure and will be deleted.
Understandably, the Tea app, allegedly launched in 2023, has been a source of controversy since its inception with accusations of being unethical, defamatory and an invasion of privacy. True or not, it is just plain mean-spirited. Wikipedia claims that there have been ten class-action lawsuits filed against them since this exploded.
The founder is actually a man who claims that he was inspired to make the app because of his unmarried mother’s bad experiences in dating. It is meant to protect womanhood. He also claims that the information that the women post is “largely true”. His critics respond that (1) he has no system or way of knowing if anything posted is or isn’t true at all, (2) the term “largely true” is just another way of saying “not completely true”, and (3) this does not explain why men need to be excluded from accessing the site. Incidentally, as I will discuss later, sites like these can be made with full access to certain members and “Read only” to “lower class” members. Hence, there is absolutely no excuse not to allow men to join at least for “Read only”.
Up to a few weeks back, this Tea app was the number one free app in the world being downloaded to smartphones. Nevertheless, this app recently hit the news because the system, promised to be secure, was hacked, probably by some disgruntled males who saw the evil in it. Initially it admitted to about 72,000 “legacy” (old) images being hacked (old means since 2023 up to Feb. 2024). This put the photos and driver’s licenses (which were not deleted as promised) of 13,000 ladies plus another 59,000 of their posts and comments up for grabs.
Shortly after that, the app admitted to a second breach, which may just be an update on the initial breach, which involves over a million images. This breach has become so disastrous that, for the time being, the entire app was shut down. As to be expected, this made a whole “community” of men, who felt that they may have been affected or may someday be affected by the slander in this app, breathe a sigh of relief and sing the song of Karma.
What is my take on this?
We know that the secular and non-Jews live in a G-dless world without boundaries and “anything goes”. Even so, such a forum should have no right to exist.
Why? Because it is totally cursed.
I wrote about it almost six years ago in this post:
Arrur Makkah Re’eihu B’Seter – Part 1: Good Faith
This is one of the kelalos (curses) that were said to us on Mt. Eval. And any action that is a curse for us is a curse for the nations exponentially.
To get where this is going, it is very important to read at least the first half of this post (until the “Email policy” part.) But, in a nutshell, what I wrote is that a person can say or write something about another that has virtually all of the seven stipulations of the Chafetz Chaim in Hilchos Lashon Hara 10:2 – i.e., be a total toelles, firsthand knowledge, no embellishing, no filling in blanks, the works – and still be the worst type of malshin if he overlooks one thing: if he or she says it behind the back of the person in question. More accurately, I wrote in that post that this is a variation of stipulation 3 – that the subject must be confronted ahead of time.
As a public service I will reprint some excerpts from that post:
No doubt, when someone wants to say something defamatory, malicious, and degrading about another person, he will certainly not want to say it in that person’s presence. Aside from the fact that it will anger that person and who knows what may happen as a result, there is something else. The gossiper does not want the person to be able to contradict him and to defend his position or to set the record straight. The gossiper wants all his listeners to take him at his word and not to question what he says.
So he makes sure to say the gossip where it won’t readily get back to the subject. He will say it at a gathering or on a forum at which the subject has not been invited to participate. Where the subject is not present or invited or even allowed to respond. The gossiper doesn’t want to be tripped up and he wants whatever can befall the subject due to the gossip to come to fruition.
And a bit later, in reference to Shmiras HaLashon stipulation 3 I wrote:
I think that there is another purpose included in this [stipulation]: You must notify the person in order to allow him to explain himself and justify his actions or clarify misconceptions. As I said earlier, to set the record straight. The person needs to be notified that you are saying this about them and given the opportunity to respond.
If you skip this step, even if your intention is pure and you meet every other condition of the Chofetz Chaim, your speech is still Lashon Hara. This is because it is מכה רעהו בסתר. If the person does not know what is being said and cannot respond, one can no longer assert that his slander was “in good faith”.
Okay, I got it. I wrote it more than five years ago, and I am writing about it today. So what? This is what the non-Jewish are doing on non-Jewish sites. It’s their business. What’s it got to do with us?
The sad answer is:
We, too, are doing it on our ultra-frum Internet sites. It’s just as much a curse and it needs to stop. Or, at least, stop being so hefker. This episode with the Tea Dating Advice app is here to show us how horrible this is and to open our eyes and to rid our midst of this evil.
I alluded to this in my initial post in 2019. Here is how I closed that post:
This is how I write [i.e., without Makkah Re'eihu]. But this is not how others write about me. I won’t dish out מכה רעהו בסתר but I sure get a lot of it. And it is alarming how many very Torah observant web sites are not mindful of what truly constitutes lashon hara – מכה רעהו בסתר.
In the second part of this post, we will visit some of those “frum” Internet web sites.
I initially wanted to write the promised Part 2 to point out the shortcomings of at least two very popular frum web sites. But, at the time, I thought better of it.
Although I considered it tochacha in good faith with adherence to all the rules - a toelles, totally firsthand knowledge and fully true, and something I would certainly want their moderators to see (besides that they are only web sites, not specific people) – I just didn’t think at the time that “mussaring” these sites would accomplish anything.
But now, with this Tea app controversy making the headlines, I think it may be a more auspicious time to drive the point home.
At this stage, I want to clarify that the primary culprit of this evil are the chat forums. This obviously includes regular social media like Facebook, X, Instagram and WhatsApp but now, I am here to discuss specific independent chat forums. And two very “frum” ones.
In general, I don’t have anything to do with chat forums and I don’t think any Torah observant Jew should. There is very little redeeming qualities to them and spending time on them usually constitutes bitul zman at best. At worst, it is the most fertile breeding ground for Lashon Hara (LH), Motzi Shem Rah (SR) and Makkah Re’eihu B’Seter (MRB) that one can encounter.
As I wrote, even when the sites try to restrict real LH and endeavor to ensure that anything critical being posted is totally true and has a purpose, if it regards and identifies any specific person and that person is not notified, it goes into the category of MRB and is as bad as any other LH or SR.
This infraction can occur on two levels:
Level 1 (Basic MRB) – The forum is open to the public so anyone can sign in and join the chat. It only constitutes MRB because the subject is not aware of the discussion, hence, it is all happening behind his back.
Level 2 (Advanced MRB) – The forum is an exclusive forum which only accepts certain members, just like the secular Tea app. The subject of the discussion cannot become a member and join the chat. Typically, he/she is not aware of the discussion, but even if he/she is, if they cannot get on and join in and clarify or defend, it is much worse than the basic kind of MRB.
So, I want to discuss the two Jewish chat rooms with which I have personal firsthand experience in order that the sites and their readers should be alerted to the sinister danger of MRB. One was at Level 1 and the other at Level 2.
Since I don’t hang around chat forums, I probably wouldn’t have known they exist if not for the Makkah Re’eihu that I suffered at their hands. I came across both of them through good ol’ Google while checking for references to my book.
The first culprit (Level 1) is the Coffee Room at Yeshiva World News.
In general. I think YWN is a nice kosher site and presents mainline news stories that are relevant to us. The ads are for worthy tzedakos and shiurim and important goods and services (such as the Yashar Initiative), and the obituary page is very useful. Yes, I check it out, and sadly, frequently enough, I have some kind of connection to the dear departed (A”H). I think some of the issues presented in the Mailbag are over the top, but they are food for thought.
Of course, sometimes they make mistakes even in their regular reporting and print things they shouldn't (HERE) albeit "with a heavy heart" (see my comments at the bottom of that news item).
But their real problem is the "decaffeinated" Coffee Room – their chat forum. In general, I don’t know what is discussed in it, but I question how any moshav leitzim discussion is beneficial at all. Does it really need to exist? And is it really decaffeinated (it kept me up at night)?
[Note – Back in the day, I spent many an hour in the real Coffee Room at BMG Lakewood (drinking real coffee), so I can imagine what goes on in this virtual one.]
The infraction I refer to was a thread dated July 31, 2016 and you can see it HERE.
It started out very favorably for me, as the original poster (OP), named Joseph, started it to recommend my book. It turned ugly soon enough when some detractors got on with their dossier of criticisms. The problem was that the criticisms did not relate to my book, which this guy was recommending, but was actually a discredit on the author of the book, that these folks hadn’t read, on account of my opinions in my blog, not my book.
I am gratified that this Joseph fellow stuck at my side throughout the thread – even defending the blog posts – but it turned really ugly a year later when a detractor posted to accuse this Joseph fellow of being me in disguise.
I can assure you that this Joseph person was not me, nor any agent of mine in any capacity, and, as far as I know, we don’t even know each other at all. But if you read the entire thread, you will find me chiming into it in June 2018. That’s just shy of two whole years after the thread was opened. Why then?
Obviously, this is when I discovered that this thread exists and took on a login account at the Coffee Room. Note - this is happening nine years after my book came out, so I had long stopped checking the Internet for search hits on a frequent basis and only did it occasionally. Thus, for two years, this thread was sitting on the heiliger YWN chat forum and I had no idea it was online.
In its time, it was a fair thread where I had some supporters, some detractors and a few undecideds. If I had known of it, I would have had an opportunity to neutralize the criticism of the detractors (and to state that I am not Joseph), to set the record straight on their blog issues (Joseph helped with that), and to win over the undecideds.
By the time I discovered the thread, all such opportunity was long gone and the “damage” done by the detractors couldn’t be repaired.
Arrur Makka Re’eihu B’Seter.
I want to be clear that everybody is entitled to their opinions and can voice them. You are welcome to bash my book and/or my blog for what is written there, but it needs to be done “kosher”. This means you can criticize what I wrote but not what you thought I wrote but really didn’t. You need to be objective. You cannot make a “subjective” interpretation and then criticize me on your own subjectivity. And, lastly, you cannot criticize me (or what I write) behind my back.
These aren’t my rules.
Incidentally, this thread is a clear display of what we are taught is Avak Lashon Harah. This is when one person says even positive things about a person or product in a forum of hypercritical people, and it triggers some detractors to go on and say detrimental things. L’toelles, of course. I don’t mean to blame Joseph who, after all is an ally, or anybody who opens a thread on a chat forum with a praise, plug, recommendation or anything positive. Yet, it is scary to see how frequently things turn around and snowball the other direction. This is especially when dealing with controversial or “political” topics, which is what a lot of chat forums are intended for.
This is quite disturbing. I don’t know who else may have been victimized with LH, SR and MRB on forums like this, but I can’t be the only one.
As is expected, the YWN Coffee Room has a list of rules. First on the list is:
Loshon Hara will not be tolerated at all. We are not and will not become Lashon Hara central.
Either they have become a bit more tolerant, or they don't recognize some forms of Lashon Hara.
A bit further down, there is another rule:
Please don’t try to pry out personal information. Any questions or comments directed towards trying to “figure out” a blogger’s identity will not be tolerated.
This is the Internet and everyone sees what you write. Ve’Hameivin Yavin.
I couldn't have said it better.
So, this wraps up our first culprit. Remember that this is only the Basic form of Makkah Re’eihu B’Seter. The second culprit is way more advanced. It is our frum version of the Tea Dating Advice app. No men allowed. We will look into it in an upcoming post.
Stay tuned for The Mother of all Jewish Chat Groups.
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