Technologies

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.

Technologies

Forza Horizon 6 Focuses on Japanese Car Culture: Here’s What to Know

The racing series’ latest edition, out in May, includes stunning views of Mount Fuji.

Microsoft has given racing-game fans a deeper dive into the upcoming Forza Horizon 6, and on Friday announced a May 19 release date for Xbox and PC. Premium Edition buyers will get early access on May 15, but PlayStation 5 owners will have to wait until sometime later in 2026 to play.

The publisher provided a first-look video that shows stunning views of Japan, including cherry blossom-strewn rural roads, ice-enclosed courses, neon-lit Tokyo streets and plenty of views of Mount Fuji.

The game will launch with 550 collectible cars, and Microsoft will display two on the cover: the 2025 GR GT Prototype and the 2025 Toyota Land Cruiser.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Microsoft says the open-world game will focus on Japanese car culture, with the player in the role of a new arrival to the country guided by two close friends, motorsports fan Jordy and car builder Mei.

The locations will be divided into districts, ranging from bustling urban areas such as Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing to suburbs, industrial docklands, and more rural areas.

What to know about Forza Horizon 6

Progress in the game will include unlocking new cars and more advanced races, plus a journal of digital mementos inspired by stamp collecting.

The game features eight player houses across Japan that serve as fast-travel points. And new to the game series is The Estate, a piece of land players can acquire and build on.

Inspired by Japanese car culture, Forza Horizon 6 will add Car Meets that’ll serve as social spaces for players.

The Standard Edition costs $70, the Deluxe Edition costs $100, and the Premium Edition, which unlocks early access and includes several Car Packs, costs $120. The game will also be a Day 1 release on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and will be available on Steam and Xbox Cloud as well.

Technologies

TikTok Deal Will Keep It Online in the US, but Your Experience of the App Might Change

TikTok has secured its future by agreeing to split the US app from the global business. But the deal will spark changes to the app’s algorithm.

TikTok has dodged a ban and secured its long-term future in the US by announcing a deal on Friday that will see a joint venture take over US operations of the popular social video app. The deal marks the conclusion of a protracted battle over the app’s continued presence in the US, which dates back to President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

TikTok in the US will now be run by TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which was established by a White House executive order issued in September 2025. At its helm will be CEO Adam Presser, previously the head of operations, who led TikTok’s efforts to ensure that the data of the app’s US users was kept secure. Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok’s international operations, will serve on the joint venture’s board of directors.

«TikTok USDS Joint Venture’s mandate is to secure US user data, apps and the algorithm through comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity measures,» the company said in a statement. «It will safeguard the US content ecosystem through robust trust and safety policies and content moderation while ensuring continuous accountability through transparency reporting and third-party certifications.»

The venture has three managing investors — Silver Lake, Oracle and MGX — which each hold a 15% stake. Oracle also will be responsible for protection of US user data and of the freshly retrained algorithm, which will be specific to the US version of the app.

Presidents Trump and Joe Biden raised concerns over a potential national security threat posed by TikTok, because of its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance, which will retain a 19.9% stake in the new joint venture. During both of his presidential terms, Trump has attempted to ban TikTok, but also delayed the ban’s implementation.

The deal announced on Friday arrived moments before the deadline set by the White House for TikTok to comply with its September executive order. In a post on his social site Truth Social, Trump said he was «so happy to have helped in saving TikTok.»

«I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok,» said Trump. He also thanked China’s President Xi Jinping for working with the US and approving the deal. «He could have gone the other way, but didn’t, and is appreciated for his decision,» he said.

How TikTok might change for you

TikTok has more than 200 million users in the US, and if you’re one of them, the deal announced on Friday will allow you to continue using the app without the ongoing fear of it being banned.

It also won’t see you cut off from creators in China, or the rest of the world. People in the US will still be able to watch videos from Europe, such as last year’s viral «nothing beats a Jet2 holiday» trend. TikTok users outside of the US will still be able to follow their favorite American creators.

In the TikTok newsroom post, the company addressed interoperability, saying that the deal would «provide US users with a global TikTok experience, ensuring US creators can be discovered and businesses can operate on a global scale.»

Where the experience might change is in the content that is recommended to you. Under the terms of the deal, TikTok’s algorithm will be retrained, tested and updated based on US user data. This will have a knock-on impact on what you see on the platform, according to Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester.

«TikTok’s power lies in its content graph — an algorithm that learns from thousands of user signals to deliver hyper‑relevant, highly addictive videos,» said Chickering. «With a US joint venture retraining that algorithm on domestic data, the experience will change — maybe for the better, maybe not. One thing’s certain: TikTok in America won’t be the same.»

In spite of the interoperability that will see US TikTok users connected to those across the globe, it does seem likely that the focus on US data will lead to a shift away from the global nature of the content that the algorithm currently serves up to you.

«TikTok’s US algorithm will now be trained on US data, which means what trends — and what dominates feeds — will feel distinctly American,» said Chickering. «Global content will still appear, but its ranking will change.»

Exactly how this will look may differ from person to person, and will likely take some time to come into effect as the joint venture begins the retraining process. TikTok didn’t immediately respond to questions regarding how long it expects retraining the algorithm to take, when US TikTok users should expect to be impacted by changes and whether it will issue public updates about this process.

One potential pitfall the company might want to avoid, Chickering said, is moderating the US version of TikTok in a way that tilts too far toward any one particular political viewpoint, or fails to curb misinformation. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now X) — and his subsequent algorithmic changes that alienated users and advertisers — is a cautionary tale in this regard. With Instagram Reels already vying to replace TikTok, the company will likely want to avoid making changes that could spark a mass exodus of people.

«For now, it’s speculation,» said Chickering. «It remains to be seen how new leadership will wield this power and whether moderation policies will evolve.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Jan. 23

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Jan. 23.

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.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Hope you’re familiar with a certain blond actor (8-Across)! Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

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.