Twitter/Amina FouraA gay Olympian has laid into The Daily Beast after they posted an article yesterday, which seemingly outed gay competitors in Rio.
A story on their site, which has now been deleted, faced widespread criticism for outing gay athletes using dating apps including Grindr.
The premise of the article was the alleged ‘hotbed of partying athletes, hookups, and sex, sex, sex’ at the Rio Olympics, and involved writer Nico Hines trying to connect with several gay Olympians.
While no names were mentioned in the article titled, ‘The other Olympic sport: Swiping’, they included the weights, heights, physical features and sporting category of each athlete.
This essentially means anyone with a search engine and half a brain cell could then identify them.
So @NicoHines basically just outed a bunch of athletes in his quest to write a shitty @thedailybeast article where he admitted to entrapment
— Gus Kenworthy (@guskenworthy) August 11, 2016
Considering some of these athletes were from countries where the LGBT community is persecuted against and remains illegal, it wasn’t only completely immoral, it also put athletes in danger.
Something Amini Fonua, a gay Olympic swimmer from Tonga only knows too well, as homosexuality is still illegal in Tonga.
He responded in the best way possible, by mooning them in an Instagram post:
In addition to the Instagram post, Fonua slammed the Daily Beast and the bylined journalist Nico Hines:
As an out gay athlete from a country that is still very homophobic, @thedailybeast ought to be ashamed #deplorable https://t.co/qzS9rDFJwx
— Amini Fonua (@AminiFonua) August 11, 2016
@NicoHines You fucking disgust me. Do you realize how many people's lives you just ruined without any good reason but clickbait journalism?
— Amini Fonua (@AminiFonua) August 11, 2016
@NicoHines Some of these people you just outed are my FRIENDS. With family and lives that are forever going to be affected by this
— Amini Fonua (@AminiFonua) August 11, 2016
@NicoHines Some of these people you just outed are my FRIENDS. With family and lives that are forever going to be affected by this
— Amini Fonua (@AminiFonua) August 11, 2016
It is still illegal to be gay in Tonga, and while I'm strong enough to be me in front of the world, not everybody else is. Respect that.
— Amini Fonua (@AminiFonua) August 11, 2016
Since the article was removed, Fonua thanked his supporters:
Thank you for the amazing support! We were successful in defeating ignorance with truth & honesty; #strengthinnumbers #pride ❤️????
— Amini Fonua (@AminiFonua) August 12, 2016
The Daily Beast has since posted an apology, adding in an editors note: “We were wrong. We’re sorry. And we apologise to the athletes who may have been inadvertently compromised by our story.”
