Activists will use bot to try to send information on migrants’ rights to airline passengers

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Anti-deportation activists will be using a combination of Valentine’s Day and Tinder to lobby for migrants’ human rights.

Supporters will hand their accounts on the dating app over to a bot designed to teach airline passengers how to spot a deportation happening on their flight – and how to stop it.

The scheme has been devised by the campaign group Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, who hope it will help them to spread their message outside of their usual networks.

“Tinder is an app that brings people together which is why we wanted to use it to highlight how deportations tear communities apart,” said Sam Björn, a spokesperson for LGSMigrants.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A screenshot of a Tinder conversation.

“British Airways and other airlines carry out deportations which force people to countries where they have few connections, and could face persecution or death.”

Once installed, the bot switches users’ locations to a nearby airport, and when it matches with someone there, it runs an interactive script.

“I’m at the airport atm and my mate has just been telling me about how British Airways forcefully deport people on their flights,” is one of its opening lines.

“There was a man called Jimmy Mubenga who [died] on a BA flight when they were deporting him [broken heart emoji]. If someone was being deported on my flight i’d try to stop it ... would you?”

Matches who rise to the bait will be sent a link to a site giving them more information on how deportations can violate people’s human rights, and how ordinary people can stop them if they see them taking place.

LGSM’s “see it, say it, stop it” message is inspired by the example of the Swedish student Elin Ersson, who stopped the deportation of an Afghan last July by refusing to take her seat on a flight leaving from Gothenburg airport.

“You can share as much as you want on your Facebook page but all you’re reaching is your friends,” an LGSM spokesman said. “Because Tinder is location-based it means we can target people in a specific area and on a platform they are not used to. We thought it’s a good platform to reach people that we wouldn’t normally have access to.”

Virgin Atlantic last year cancelled its contract with the Home Office to carry deportees after pressure from LGSM, but British Airways and others have so far resisted calls to end their own.