Spoiler alert: gay people look for gay sex on gay apps.

In the latest poor excuse for journalism, Nico Hines, a reporter for "The Daily Beast," decided to go undercover at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and do some hardcore investigative stuff. And by that, I mean this guy made a fake Grindr profile to report on people looking for gay hookups in Olympic Village.

Before I get into how terrible this is, I just wanna say from one Nico to another: seriously? What the hell?

I’d link the article, but they finally took it down, replacing it with this toothless editor’s note that does a poor job of explaining why it took them so long to remove the article. In the original draft, Hines published heights, weights, and countries of origin, a move as dangerous physically as it is mentally, as at least one athlete is from a nation where homosexuality is a punishable offense.

Let’s break this down for a second: currently, homosexual acts are illegal in 74 countries. Of those countries, 13 have laws which make them punishable by death. These are Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Mauritania, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar, UAE, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, and Iraq.

The editor’s note “apologizes to the athletes who may have been inadvertently compromised by [their] story,” but there was nothing inadvertent about this. You published their identifying characteristics and the nation they’re representing. You connected them with the most widely-known gay hookup app. The criminalization of homosexuality was not conceived yesterday, it definitely existed last week when Hines was compiling his “research” and Thursday when his article was approved and published.

But the geopolitical status of homosexuality is not the only issue here. There’s a larger problem that this idiocy reminds us of, and that is the problem of “outing” people in general. The term “outing,” as a verb, refers to the act of revealing someone’s sexuality to people from whom said person has not yet “come out” to. So for example, when I told one of my supposed friends in eight grade that I thought I was bisexual, and she decided to tell the whole school, she outed me.

Outing is violent regardless of what the consequences might be, because to out someone is to take away their right to define their sexuality/gender if, when, and how they wish to define it. You quite literally rob them of the chance to define for themselves, if they even want to, who they are. Typically, at least in my experience, outing is followed with acts of physical violence as well as sustained emotional violence. So, while the act itself is violent in certain forms, it also makes the victim vulnerable to other forms of violence.

Hines, and "The Daily Beast" in general, do not and cannot see fully the scope of the damage they have done. Their heterosexual privilege does not allow them to. Which is why Hines, the editors of "The Daily Beast," and every other straight person, should listen to the LGBTQ community.

If you’re gonna write something involving the LGBTQ community and/or discuss people within this community, make sure you clear it with every person involved and get advice from people within that community. What might not seem like a “big deal” to you might be a death sentence for someone else.

And if you’re gonna say something that reveals an LGBTQ person’s sexuality or gender, just don’t. Seriously. Unless you are 1000 person sure the person is already out to every single person who you contact, don’t say anything. When in doubt, shut your mouth. Trust me, your LGBTQ friends will appreciate it.