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Tea Is in Apple’s Top Free Apps, but What Is It and Why Is Everyone Talking About It?

Women’s dating safety app Tea is still sitting near the top of the free Apple App Store rankings, and experienced a data breach last week. Here’s everything you need to know.

Ask any single woman, and they’ll probably tell you how rough the dating world is. From ghosting to misleading bios, it can be challenging to know who you’re really chatting to on dating apps, and whether they’re telling the truth about themselves.

Tea is an app that allows women to anonymously review men and spill «the tea» on men they’ve dated. About 1 million women have started using the app in the past week. It’s reminiscent of those Facebook «Are We Dating the Same Guy?» groups that many cities have, except this app uses AI to verify that the people making profiles are women. 

Tea has become a viral sensation in the last few weeks — for good and bad reasons. 

The app experienced a security breach — revealed last Friday — in which data, including women’s driver’s licenses and selfies, was posted to 4chan. The breach is reportedly the result of Tea’s unsecured database. The company confirmed to CNET that unauthorized access to its systems had occurred.

What is the Tea app?

Tea is a free, women-only app exclusive to the US. It’s not a dating app; it’s a tool that women use in addition to their dating apps. It’s a space where you can share negative interactions while dating and solicit feedback on specific men you date to expose potential risks and protect other women. 

It was founded in 2023 by Sean Cook, who cites his mother getting catfished online as the motivation for the app. Tea has taken off in the past week, gaining more than a million users in that time. According to a social media post from Tea, the app has about 4 million users. It’s the second most popular free app in the Apple App Store right now, right after ChatGPT.

Tea is intended to function as a community that keeps women safe, something that traditional dating apps lack. With candid reviews and warnings from other women about people they’ve dated, Tea offers women the security of having a better idea of who they’re dating. 

When you open the app, you’ll see local men in your area whose pictures have been uploaded. You’ll also see if the man was labeled as a red or green flag, and any comments left by other women. 

You can look up specific names in the search bar and create alerts for names. The app’s capabilities aren’t limited to comments about a man’s «red flags.» Tea can also reverse-search photos to catch catfishers through Tea’s Catfish Finder AI, run background checks, check for criminal histories and public records and look up phone numbers.

Additionally, you can post questions and polls on the Tea app. According to Tea’s website, 10% of its profits go to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

How does Tea know if I’m a woman?

Not just anyone can join the Tea app — it’s for women only. When you make an account, you’ll be asked to provide your location, birth date and a picture of your ID or a selfie to verify that you’re a woman. Then you wait to be approved, which people are saying can take days from the influx of new users. 

The Tea app uses AI to verify your identity and ensure you’re a woman. Once approved, you’re anonymous apart from the username you choose. Tea uses SafeSip AI as a moderation tool that detects and removes harmful content from the app to ensure it stays a safe space for women.

Can I join Tea if I’m not a woman?

You can’t join the Tea app if you’re not a woman. However, uploading a picture to ensure you’re a woman is far from a bulletproof way to ensure only women join the app. With filters or AI tools, it’s not clear how often Tea catches things like that.

What are the security risks of Tea?

Tea presents as a safe space to share information because you can’t screenshot in the app, you’re anonymous and it’s verified that all accounts are women. 

However, the data breach shows us just how fragile something like this can be. Tea confirmed last week that there was unauthorized access to its legacy data storage system. Approximately 72,000 images were exposed, including 13,000 images of selfies and photo identification women submitted to make an account, and 59,000 images publicly viewable in the app from posts, comments and direct messages.

Tea told CNET that the company has engaged third-party cybersecurity experts to secure its systems.

The concept of Tea is to keep women safe and give them a space to share negative experiences so that others don’t have to go through the same thing. However, there has also been backlash about whether the app violates men’s privacy. On forums like Reddit, some men have shared that posts about them on the app have been false or misleading, and because they’re not allowed on the app, they cannot engage to correct the posts.

In the same way that it could be a safe place for women to share information to keep each other safe, it could potentially become a space where misinformation runs rampant and personal information is shared.

Tea didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the potential for misinformation being spread on its platform, or of the allegations of privacy violations against men. We have also asked Tea whether the platform is heterosexually geared only.

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Thursday, July 31

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for July 31.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

I almost eclipsed my time record with today’s Mini Crossword. The 8-Across clue was especially easy thanks to my young niece and her obsession with Bluey. In case you get stuck, we’ve got the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Quick punches
Answer: JABS

5A clue: Animal with unique stripes, similar to human fingerprints
Answer: ZEBRA

6A clue: The People’s ___ (The Rock’s signature wrestling move)
Answer: ELBOW

7A clue: Pumps the brakes, say
Answer: SLOWS

8A clue: Many «Bluey» viewers
Answer: TOTS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Treat once advertised as «America’s Most Famous Dessert»
Answer: JELLO

2D clue: Head of a monastery
Answer: ABBOT

3D clue: Furrowed facial features
Answer: BROWS

4D clue: Lumber mill tools
Answer: SAWS

5D clue: Grated citrus peel
Answer: ZEST

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Technologies

Your Next Yelp Reviews May Include an AI Video — With a Catch

Restaurant rating hub Yelp is now using AI videos to sum up restaurant reviews, but you may want to be careful what you post.

The next time you visit Yelp on your phone to check out reviews on the newest eatery, you may be greeted by an AI-generated video. Yelp is rolling out artificial intelligence videos to Yelp’s home page feed on its iOS app.

The AI videos use large language models to grab text from reviews on an establishment and turn it into an AI-voiced narration (courtesy of ElevenLabs) and captions (courtesy of Amazon Transcribe). Then Yelp uses uploaded photos from user reviews to create a slideshow-like display of what you can eat, drink or dance to.

As far as oversight of these AI videos goes, neither reviewers nor businesses appear to have any say. Companies can’t see the AI videos before they are generated or offer input, and users can’t decline to have their reviews or photos used, which raises a number of privacy questions.

Viewers of the AI videos will have the choice to report a video as inaccurate or containing offensive content. Yelp has said that it will conduct broad audits of the videos, which will be periodically updated for establishments as more reviews and photos come in.  

Speaking to The Verge, Yelp CPO Craig Saldanha said that the company wants to create as many videos as possible, although your own activity on Yelp will dictate whether you see the videos and which ones are shown. If we find any way for you to opt out of having your review content — possibly from years past — used in these videos, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Yelp didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

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Technologies

You’ll Never Catch Me Running Without These High-Performing Outdoor Headphones

The Shokz OpenFit wireless headphones are the ones I turn to every time I walk or exercise outside.

For anyone who walks, runs, cycles or does just about anything outside on a regular basis, I always give the same piece of advice: Ditch those noise-canceling headphones. Don’t get me wrong. I have a pair of big over-the-ear headphones that have spectacular noise cancellation, and I love them. But when I’m outside — especially if I’m close to fast-moving cars and heavy traffic — I need to be able to hear the world around me and not just my music or whatever podcast I’m bingeing at the moment. In those cases, I want something like the OpenFit true wireless headphones from Shokz.

I love a good pair of headphones, but I don’t love spending a ton of money on them. My threshold is about $100, which is why when all of my cycling friends started raving about bone-conduction headphones a few years back, I was more than a little hesitant because I would probably use them only when working out. However, now is a great time to get in on this innovative headphone technology.

These headphones are designed to be used in places where bone conduction may not be enough and, as a result, I’m rarely seen without mine on. You can grab these headphones at a great price in black and beige, both marked down to $160 right now — a $20 discount off the usual list price.

A week after I picked these up, I was nearly sideswiped by a pickup truck and the only thing that saved me was hearing it come up behind me. There’s a reason these are recommended on our list of the best running headphones you can buy.

If you’re looking for outdoor-friendly workout headphones, my first recommendation is always Shokz, formerly known as Aftershokz. Bone-conduction headphones sit just outside your ear, resting on the bone. Music vibrates through a set of pads into your skull and you hear those sounds as if they’re coming from a speaker a few feet away.

You can hear everything you’re listening to on your phone without interrupting the sounds coming from the rest of the world around you. For cyclists and runners — really anyone who does anything outside — this is a game-changing experience. It’s more accurate and pleasing than traditional headphones with «passthrough mode» and you sacrifice very little in audio quality.

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My favorite bone-conduction headphones — and I’ve tried them all — are the OpenRun Pro headphones from Shokz. They’re waterproof (which means they’re easy to clean when I’m all sweaty), the battery lasts me about 7 hours on a charge (perfect for those 70-mile riding days), and they’re comfortable enough that I can wear them all day and not feel them pressing on me. They charge magnetically with a proprietary charger but Shokz includes two cables in the box in case you lose things, as I do.

If these headphones are a little rich for your blood, no worries. Shokz also has cheaper OpenRun and OpenMove bone-conduction headphones with up to 6 hours of battery life and IP55 dust and water resistance. Whether you’re physically active outdoors or you just like exploring new things, I highly recommend giving these headphones a try.

HEADPHONE DEALS OF THE WEEK

Deals are selected by the CNET Group commerce team, and may be unrelated to this article.

The Shokz OpenMove make a great gift for an outdoor runner

The Shokz make a great purchase, either for yourself or as a gift for the outdoor runner in your life. Not only are they the best of their kind, but giving these to a runner may also give you some peace of mind to know they’re a little safer when they’re out running alongside busy streets or other high-traffic areas.

For more discounted tech, check out our editors’ picks for the best headphone deals.

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