Chinese officials recently ordered the removal of two widely used gay dating applications from mobile stores within the country, a decision that Apple confirmed to AFP on Tuesday.
This action comes against a backdrop where same-sex marriage remains illegal in China, and discrimination against the LGBTQ community is widespread. Activists have observed that an effort to suppress LGBTQ expression has expanded in recent years, particularly under President Xi Jinping.
Over the weekend, social media users in China first noted the disappearance of the complete versions of the applications, Blued and Finka, both sharing a Hong Kong-based owner, from both Apple and Android stores.
Apple later issued a statement regarding the removal: “Based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we have removed these two apps from the China storefront only,” an Apple spokesperson told AFP.
The Cyberspace Administration of China functions as the national internet regulator and chief censor for the government, and it has recently penalized several social media platforms for content management issues.
Explaining their compliance, “We follow the laws in the countries where we operate,” the Apple spokesperson said. The spokesperson further noted that earlier this year, the developer of Finka had “elected to remove the app from storefronts outside of China, and Blued was available only in China.”
Efforts by AFP to contact the CAC or the apps’ owner for immediate comment were unsuccessful. Despite the primary app removals, an express version of Blued remained available to download from Apple’s Chinese app store on Tuesday.
Internationally, a version of Blued known as HeeSay was still available for download outside China. According to its description in Apple’s app store, HeeSay informs users they will join “54 million LGBTQ+ individuals worldwide”.
This current removal follows a similar incident in 2022 when the popular gay dating app Grindr was removed from Chinese stores, coinciding with a CAC “clean-up campaign” leading up to the Beijing Winter Olympics. Notably, Blued had remained available to download at the time of Grindr’s removal.
