Dating apps confused by GPS signal jamming are being blamed for matching Israeli citizens with people in Lebanon, its neighboring country that it is currently in conflict with.
People in Israel and Lebanon have taken to social media to express confusion that their dating app feeds are now filled with people from the other country, the UAE-owned newspaper The National reported.
Following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, tensions escalated in the region, with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the Israeli army conducting strikes with drones, missiles, and artillery.
Tensions were high between the countries even before the latest conflict, and Lebanese citizens have been barred from having any contact with Israelis for years.
A Lebanese dating app user said the Israeli profiles were ‘gorgeous’
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Some have explained that the reason for the dating app confusion is Israel’s military use of GPS jamming to prevent attacks coming from Lebanon, which might confuse phones into thinking the users are located elsewhere.
“This is affecting not only dating apps but also different applications that have access to GPS to identify the user’s location,” Abed Al Kataya, a media program manager at a digital rights organization in Beirut, told The National.
“Interfering with GPS also endangers civilian and commercial maritime and aerial traffic, potentially causing navigation failures,” he said.
Israeli profiles accounted for 60-62% of the total on Tinder in Lebanon in February, according to the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour.
“Since the war started, I mostly see Israelis on the app — I barely use it anymore,” said Beirut resident Maher, per The National.
People in Israel are reporting a similar problem, with a reservist soldier taking to Facebook to express confusion that many of his recent dating app matches are based in Lebanon.
The soldier joked that if Israel decided to go after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, he hoped he would be sent to the country to meet his new matches, according to The National.
“I’ve been in the reserves for quite some time,” he wrote. “But if the army decides to get that maniac in the north, I request that my country calls me to arms once more.”
Another Lebanese dating app user, Omar, said that while he has previously seen the occasional Israeli profile, the volume has recently increased.
Per The National, he said about the Israeli profiles: “I keep seeing them, and they’re absolutely gorgeous, but I can’t do anything because we’re divided by an apartheid wall and a genocidal army that doesn’t take too well to Arabs.”
