Comment by nakodari | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nakodari | Hacker News Reader

Pakistani here, I gave Tinder a try once and it was awful. The majority of Pakistanis don't date the way Americans do due to the conservative values. When we sign up for a dating app, what we're looking for is someone whom we can connect with and marry soon - possibly within 6-12 months timeframe. Tinder is optimized for American dating and is incompatible with our family values. Therefore, when you signed up for Tinder in Pakistan, you saw that it was a hookup app rather than an app that helps you find a lifelong partner. Most Pakistanis who're serious about finding a partner use Muslim dating apps like Muzmatch and Minder.

Edit: A lot of people have replied below that this does not justify banning the app. I have simply shared my experience and also the experience of many others in Pakistan. Tinder turned into an immoral app (borderline pornography in many cases) and this being an Islamic Republic of Pakistan, it went against the conservative values of the nation to hookup and thus it was banned by the govt. The govt is the democratic representative of the people and does what the majority of the nation expects them to do.

>The govt is the democratic representative of the people and does what the majority of the nation expects them to do

A democracy must not be a tyranny of the majority. What if part of the Pakistani population enjoy these apps? Why ban them if they don't harm anybody?

People think these apps are harming people by enabling behavior that harms people.

It's the same line of reasoning that leads to prohibition on drugs, guns and booze.

I love all the replies implying they can obliviously dictate a completely different culture's values to them

Good friend of mine from Pakistan got married last year (via matchmaking) and I wish them happiest days. Besides small set of culture differences their values (family etc) are almost no different from other friends say from catholic countries in Europe. Of course I didn't want to generalise but that's how I feel.

That does not excuse banning an app on a moral basis. Some people might not see themselves in those family values.

Thanks for responding, it is interesting to hear your perspective.

What was awful about it? It seems to me that it was a difference of expectations?

So that's why it's ok to ban an app? Don't you think it is better to let the people choose what they want? If you are right, and that's what people will choose, the app will die on its own because it will have no users.

As an American: tinder is awful here too but I think that’s just because dating is hard.

Ok. But this doesn't justify blocking the app by the government, or does it?

Government bans, even the US one, certain kinds of speech like death threats and such.

In Pakistani people do not consider the American way of dating as acceptable, and consider it a harm to society as a whole. Individual behavior affects society. There's a reason criminals are in jail.

Governments ban things for public interest, and it is in the wider interests of the population that such apps be banned or regulated liked banks so everyone gets a chance like they do in real world. Many governments optimize human happiness, family over money and raw GDP numbers. It might come as a shock to you, but not for the people of Pakistan. They're not for sale under hyper optimized algorithms that suck the soul of the people.

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