By Dimitris Kouvaras,
A curious sight expected Séamus Malekafzali, a Lebanon-based American freelance journalist, when he opened Tinder in Beirut on August 22nd. Instead of profiles of prospective partners, catchy pick-up lines and charming faces (or just bodies without faces), he was greeted with images of warplanes. They were accompanied by small texts in Arabic, whose white characters sharply contrasted with the deep red font. Of course, it wasn’t planes that had opened profiles in search of a sexy fighter jet mate and spoke the local tongue. These were ads belonging to CENTCOM, the Central Command of the United States military, whose purpose was totally unerotic. For reference, the text that Malekafzali first saw read as follows: “Do not take up arms against the US and its partners”. What on earth was it doing there?
They came shortly after Iran had pledged retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran by Israeli intelligence, creating fears of escalation with the possibility of open conflict looming over the Middle East. Lebanon is considered fertile ground for Iranian military proxies, such as Hezbollah, a paramilitary group that has consistently attacked Israel since 2023. It also launched projectiles against Israeli intelligence infrastructure on August 25, the only palpable vindication of the Iranian revenge claims to date. As a sworn Israeli ally, the U.S. had good reason to restrain aggressiveness in the region through force projection. Besides doubling the nearby carrier groups with the deployment of U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, it apparently chose to use propaganda as well for the same intimidating purposes. The ads brag about the presence of F-16 and A-10 aircraft on standby, ready to counter anyone who dare attack Israel. Their content classifies them as “psyops”, means of psychological warfare used in intelligence operations as dissuasive means. That’s all too far from romance.
Their presence on Tinder is alarming on two different level. On the strategic one, they appear totally misguided, ending up in a washout. Even if one concedes to the comment of a U.S. official about “meeting people where they are” and ignores the rather sexist stereotypical projection of lascivious military-age men eagerly looking for sexual partners that the choice of platform induces, there’s still no reason to believe in the measure’s effectiveness. After all, Hezbollah’s fighters opt out of possessing mobile phones due to the risk of being detected, which would make them a minute portion of the audience exposed to the add, which still would likely anger rather than scare those who saw it. What’s more, the ads were not a clandestine project but included the official CENTCOM logo, entailing an unusual level of transparency for U.S. intelligence, which has led some to believe they were posted by a third party instead, given the absence of any comment from the American Embassy in Beirut or CENTCOM itself. Still, there was no denouncement of the project either, pointing to the original scenario of attribution, which has caused widespread criticism over the misguided nature and redundancy of the cause. Ironically enough, instead of catching Hezbollah’s attention, they caught the attention of American Malekafzali, and they were called out by an also American newspaper, The Washington Post, which led to their removal. Apparently, the U.S. fought itself in the end.
Their removal brings me to the second, and most important, reason for concern. The fact that they were posted on an American platform, while violating its terms for violent and political messaging, highlights the indifference of military propaganda agents to legal constraints or viewer’s rights, even regarding native companies. There seems to be a serious gap in accountability, at times aided by concessions of social media platforms themselves, such as X, which gave “direct approval and internal protection” to CENTOM for the covert influencing of public opinion in the Middle East through fake accounts. When state and corporate interests merge in such conspicuous ways, there’s little room for the user to verify the credibility of the information they are met up with, or even the identity of its propagators. Given that most of our perceptions are formed online, not least on social media platforms, the possibilities for manipulation and misinformation are huge. One of the most hideous examples was the “fact” that relatives of Afghans who fled Iran had received their bodies with the organs removes, spread through fake profiles managed by the American military. Although the current U.S. administration has pledged to adhere to stricter standards in clandestine operations, it doesn’t sound convincing enough.
Even the Tinder case, where CENTCOM was visible, remains deeply problematic. As Malekafzali commented, it’s unprecedented for a government agency to post ads on a dating up, space usually reserved for businesses. This blurs the distinction between state and business, who seem to be competing for attention in the same way. Furthermore, this audace enablement of state ad propaganda raises serious questions over its compatibility with principles such as national sovereignty that are foundational to international law, while violating existing practices of political communication, especially given the projection in another country. This improper intermixing has its social parallel in the intermixing of social activities, aggravated through social media. In the Lebanese case, looking for a sexual or romantic partner became (for as long as the ads were displayed) entwined with choosing sides in a conflict, which after all has little to do with the median Lebanese, unless a series of proxies and mediations are considered. Such overlay can, in this case, cause serious psychological distress, since it happens against the user’s will, and can give the impression of the lack of any “safe space” away from political turmoil or the fearful reminder of military conflict. If it contains force projection elements, Tinder becomes something other than Tinder; it loses its playful character and turns into a psychological battering ram. For that reason, the ethical dimension of the move is more important and blameworthy than the strategic one.
References
- U.S. military’s Tinder ad in Middle East raises eyebrows. The Washington Post. Available here
- Why Is the U.S. Military Buying Tinder Ads in Lebanon? Reason. Available here
- Opening Tinder in Lebanon to find… an ad from the U.S. military?”. L’ Orient Today. Available here
