Kickstarter has suspended the campaign for Adoptly, the project to crowdfund a Tinder-like app for finding children up for adoption.
Kickstarter suspends campaign for Adoptly, the dubious looking ‘Tinder for adoption’
Adoptly
is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.
No explanation was given for why the campaign was suspended, but it’s pretty easy to make some guesses, the leading one being: Adoptly looked completely fake.
The service sounded like satire and listed employees whose identities couldn’t be verified in any way. While one member of the Adoptly team who spoke with The Verge insisted that it was real, there wasn’t much evidence to back it up.
Adoptly really looks like parody
As a commentary on the way we use modern dating apps to judge people instantaneously based on completely superficial values, it’s not a bad campaign. But as a real service, should Adoptly actually be aiming to make one, it’d be exceptionally crass, essentially creating a “Hot or Not” for kids in need of a home.
Kickstarter declined to say why Adoptly’s campaign was suspended, but pointed to a list of rules that campaigns can be suspended for violating. Adoptly did not immediately return a request for comment.
Adoptly’s campaign wasn’t going all that well anyway, so the suspension isn’t about to change the outcome. At the time it was suspended, Adoptly had only received $4,000 in pledges out of a $150,000 goal.
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