Outcry over sickening "Pennywise" Tinder ad

Tinder has sparked concern after it launched an in-app marketing campaign for the horror-movie remake of Stephen King's It.

Users of the world's largest dating app have been discovering a fake "profile" for Pennywise, the murderous supernatural clown from the film.

And they're not impressed.

"It was so scary to have that pop up on Tinder at 10pm at night!" Tinder user Lauren Ingram told Be. "Scariest thing is I'm in Alice Springs and it says Pennywise is only 2 kms away. So they must have it set to 2kms distance wherever you are."

The bizarre marketing campaign is especially tone deaf in light of the numerous past instances of Tinder dates going horribly wrong.

Gable Tostee, 30, was eventually acquitted of murder charges in 2016, two years after his Tinder date Warriena Wright, 26, plunged to her death from the balcony of his apartment.

In 2016, Emmanuel Delani Valdez Bocanegra, then 26, was accused of murdering a young woman he met on the dating app, then dissolving her body in acid, because she had refused to have sex with him.

And a 2015 study found evidence that some men on Tinder were willing to "date" underage girls as young as 13, sparking concerns about paedophiles using the app to groom their victims.

Be has approached Tinder for comment.

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