AHF’s latest Tinder/Grindr STD billboards feature naked ‘full body’ silhouettes of couples embracing horizontally set against a brightly colored graffiti-style background. The September billboards featured cameo-like black silhouettes of four upright heads positioned as two couples facing each other. In both the old and new artwork, each couple (one a man and a woman; the other,two men) one member of the couple has the name of one of the popular hook up apps, such as Tinder, superimposed on it; the facing body (or head) has the name of a sexually transmitted disease, such as Chlamydia, across it. The billboards also include the URL ‘FreeSTDCheck.org,’ where people can get information and locations offering free HIV and STD testing.

“While AHF’s Tinder/Grindr STD billboards do not expressly equate these social apps with STDs, they do encourage users of the apps to think about whether their own use of them has put them at risk,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “There are legitimate concerns, and a critical ongoing need for greater attention to STD prevention and transmission—as the alarming new STD statistics from the CDC show.”

A lengthy September 2015 Vanity Fair article entitled “Tinder and the Dawn of the ‘Dating Apocalypse” explored the role mobile dating apps are increasingly playing in encouraging casual sex among young adults. AHF’s billboard campaigns featuring Tinder and Grindr attempt to remind users of the inherent STD risks of both heterosexual and homosexual casual sexual encounters.

"Both Tinder and Grindr’s response to our previous public service billboards on STD awareness were really tone deaf. We expected that these businesses would be concerned about the sexual health of their customers, from whom they make millions. Instead they called lawyers and blocked our advertising," said Whitney Engeran Cordova, Senior Director, Public Health Division for AIDS Healthcare Foundation.