On Wednesday, Tinder made it crystal clear that they do not and will not stand for racism. The app has permanently banned a man named Nick Vedovi for sending racist and sexist messages at a woman who he apparently thought didn't respond quick enough, The Huffington Post Canada reported.
In response to the incicent, Rosette Pambakian, Tinder’s Vice President of Communication and Brand, released a statement titled “In Commemoration of National Pig Day.”
“Tinder has a zero-tolerance policy on disrespect,” Pambakian wrote. “No racist rants. No sexist pigs. No trolling. No jerks who can’t get over their own inadequacies long enough to have a decent conversation with another person on Tinder...Why anyone would choose to go out into the world and spread hate I will never understand, but you do not have that choice on Tinder. Hate is not an option and we will continue to fight it wherever it rears its ugly head.”
At the end of her statement, Pambakian made it crystal clear that anyone who acts like Vedovi will face the same consequences—being banned from the dating app. Serves them right.
Vedovi’s behavior first came to light when Kevin Tran, a friend of the woman Vedovi had sent the racist messages to, posted screenshots of the messages online, according to BuzzFeed News. Tran showed up as the mutual connection on Tinder when the women and Vedovi matched.
“He exploded on her because she was taking a shower at the time and couldn’t respond,” Tran told BuzzFeed. “I think she said this was within a 15-minute time span. At first, I was skeptical and since I had known him previously, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She showed me the screenshots and I was in shock.”
Before he posted the screenshots on Facebook, Tran confonted Vedovi via Facebook Messenger, but Vedovi told Tran that he didn't send those messages, and they were instead from someone else with his old number. Vedovi also claimed that his picture must have been stolen to create this account on the dating app. However, according to BuzzFeed News, when Tran called Vedovi's alleged new number, he reached the voicemail of someone called Rob—something just doesn't add up here.
Since then, Tran’s post has been shared over a thousand times, and other women have shared their own unfortunate encounters with Vedovi on Tinder, BuzzFeed News reports. Tran also shared a screenshot of a message a different woman had received from Vedovi, who said that she had a “great body with an empty brain.”
Props to Tinder and Tran for standing against this sort of behavior, because obviously this kind of behavior should never be tolerated. Here's hoping incidents like this never occur again.