The San Francisco Bay Area has always been at the forefront of promoting cutting-edge research and adopting new approaches to stem HIV transmissions and to encourage gay and bisexual men to test regularly for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
One of the most successful was the San Francisco Department of Public Health's award-winning Healthy Penis campaign that ran for several years. Gay men responded to the penis character who was featured in clever cartoon ads and as a costumed figure at neighborhood street fairs. He was there to remind them to get tested regularly for STDs, and pointed out that no man wanted to be with his sidekick, Phil the syphilis sore.
We want to encourage innovation around gay men's health. So it was concerning to learn this week about a new outreach program conducted by San Mateo County health officials. The county health department is using fake Grindr profiles to engage men via instant messaging about safer sex. It's a bait and switch tactic that has the potential to backfire badly.
It's skirting the line between deception and forthrightness. We're not sure how we would feel if we were using an app like Grindr and suddenly were told the person we contacted was a health worker who wanted us to get tested.
But we know that in this social media age, all bets are off in terms of knowing who you're actually communicating with. As Darryl Lampkin, the San Mateo County STD/HIV prevention supervisor, explained at a recent meeting of the San Francisco HIV Prevention Planning Council, the county is certainly not the only one using fake photos on Grindr. He also emphasized that health workers, some of whom are women, are "very forthcoming early in the conversation about why we're there."
The numbers Lampkin touted clearly show that his approach is working �" contacts with gay and bi men jumped from just 60 to 215 that were attributed to Grindr outreach. Nearly 80 percent of those contacts remained engaged when told who was really behind the photo and why they were there.
But Lampkin, who is gay, can't say �" as he did �" that the county isn't deceiving people. Using altered stock photos and creating fake profiles is deception, no matter how effective the program is.
San Francisco health officials told us that they have no plans to operate a similar program and that's a good thing.
FGG's Facebook blunder
The fake Grindr profiles weren't the only social media story in local news this week. From our sports columnist Roger Brigham comes the ugly tale of an unnamed Federation of Gay Games board member who anonymously responded to an anti-gay troll. Both people engaged in homophobic and anti-straight comments that have no place on an official Facebook page of the group that started the Gay Games. An FGG spokesman said the organization would update its communications policy, but the kicker is that FGG's existing policy was disregarded by the board member, starting with the fact that he (or she) posted anonymously. FGG needs to retrain everyone who has access to its social media sites as well as update its policy. There are so many trolls online these days that simply ignoring the offending post would have been the best course of action.
A much better approach is the one that Gay Games 9 organizers in Cleveland are taking: have paid staff do the social media engagement. Ann Gynn, Gay Games 9's director of marketing and communication, clearly knows the importance of targeting messages and controlling the messengers. Comments are so closely monitored that designated staff receive an alert whenever a comment or link is posted or shared on the site. If the FGG had similar controls it might have prevented the recent exchange.
It's easy to hide behind social media sites, even ones like Facebook that ostensibly require using real names. And it's the people who hide behind anonymity who often post comments that they otherwise wouldn't if they were held accountable for their actions.