It looks like the US military is conducting psyops on Tinder now

Picture this: you’re browsing Tinder, swiping left, very occasionally swiping right, etc, etc, when suddenly you’re assaulted by an image of an American fighter jet, its ominous black belly against a cloudy sky, accompanied by a threatening message from the US military. It might seem like an unlikely place to stumble across such blatant wartime propaganda, but it’s now a very real possibility for Tinder users in Lebanon.

Last week, journalist Séamus Malekafzali shared a series of screenshots to X, showing adverts from the United States Central Command (Centcom) on the location-based dating app, which popped up while based in Lebanon. Featuring photos of F-16 fighter planes and A-10 attack aircraft, the ads also carried a message in Arabic: “Do not take arms against the US and its partners.”

Another message stated that the US will “protect its partners in the face of threats from the Iranian regime and its agents” – those ‘partners’ including Israel, whose killings in Gaza reportedly exceed 40,000. (The Lancet places its conservative estimate of indirect deaths at a staggering 186,000.) Swiping through the Tinder ad, meanwhile, took users to a post from Centcom Arabic’s X account, showing US jets currently operating within “the US Central Command area of ​​responsibility”.

The US military’s social media psyops (or ‘psychological operations’) are nothing new, of course. A 2022 review of its clandestine strategies came in response to concerns from social media platforms, like Facebook and then-Twitter, about its misuse of their platforms via fake accounts intended to manipulate overseas audiences.

The new ads aren’t actually clandestine, though, explicitly bearing the Centcom logo. Nonetheless, Tinder “promptly removed” the ads according to a spokesperson (via TechCrunch) because they violated the platform’s policies related to violence, safety, and advocacy.

The grim campaign – which apparently targeted disaffected young men in the Middle East amid fears of a war between Iran, Israel, and their respective allies – has also raised eyebrows in the military community, according to the Washington Post. On Tuesday (August 27) an anonymous defence official told the newspaper: “Broadly speaking and as a matter of policy, the Department of Defense does conduct military information operations in support of our national security priorities. These activities must be undertaken in compliance with US law and DOD policy, and we are committed to enforcing those safeguards.”

Another anonymous officer doubted the adverts’ effectiveness, however, while Gittipong Paruchabutr (a retired psyops officer and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council) added that Tinder was a poor choice of platform for the US military to spread its threats. “I’m guessing the average belligerent is probably among a very small subset of Tinder users,” he pointed out, saying that the ad was “either an unforced error or laziness”.

Centcom declined to comment on the ad campaign, explaining that it rarely discusses information operations. The Pentagon also had no comment.