Two women have been banned from Tinder after they used the dating app to urge others to support Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) presidential bid, Reuters reported on Friday.
Tinder locked the two womens’ accounts after getting several complaints with men who received messages urging them to support Sanders.
“Do you feel the bern?” Robyn Gedrich wrote in Tinder messages, according to Buzzfeed News. “Please text WORK to 82623 for me. Thanks.”
Gedrich, a 23-year-old New Jersey resident, sent messages to 60 people per day, according to Reuters. If people sent a text message to the number she provided, they start receiving updates from the Sanders campaign and a link where they would sign up to volunteer.
“Some people would ask what is this for, and I would kind of explain,” she told Reuters. “Some of them would unmatch me or report me as a bot.”
Haley Lent, a 22-year-old from Iowa, used a slightly different approach. She was able to change her location with the premium version of the app, so she could talk with people in New Hampshire, as well as Iowa. And she would simply ask people who they planned on voting for, trying to persuade them to choose Sanders, according to Reuters.
A Hawaiian politician made the news last year for using Tinder to reach out to voters for his county councilman campaign. He stopped using Tinder for campaigning after some of his matches asked him to go on dates
