Are North Koreans on Tinder?

/ Yonhap

U.S. dating app Tinder has “many users” in North Korea, Tinder claimed on its official Twitter account on Wednesday.

In a reply to a “Vanity Fair” article, which criticized Tinder and the growth of online dating, Tinder said the writer should “talk to our many users in China and North Korea who find a way to meet people on Tinder even though Facebook is banned.”

/ Screen capture from Tinder Twitter

Tinder has had 70,000 downloads on Android smartphones in China, but this is not a large amount, considering that Tinder has 50 million active users.

To sign in to Tinder, users must have Facebook account. North Korea and China ban Facebook. Users in China can download the dating app via Baidu, Tencent and Qihoo 360.

Tinder spokeswoman Rosette Pambakian said Tinder had users in 196 countries including China and North Korea, but she refused to disclose further information to the South China Morning Post.

Koryo Tours general manager Simon Cockerell also said, “Bear in mind that North Koreans can’t access the internet.”

He said that if Tinder was referring to foreigners in North Korea who could access the Internet, then “many” was surely an overstatement as there were not many foreigners there.