Apple has removed two popular gay dating apps in China in response to the government’s continued policing of LGBTQIA+ related online content.
According to a recent report from Wired, Blued and Finka disappeared from the company’s App Store in China after the country’s internet regulator issued an order.
“We follow the laws in the countries where we operate. 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 the news outlet in an email statement.
The spokesperson went on to say that the two apps, owned by parent company BlueCity, had already dialled back availability before being completely removed.
“Earlier this year, the developer of Finka elected to remove the app from storefronts outside of China, and Blued was available only in China,” they added.
While Finka and Blued can no longer be downloaded from the App Store, users who already have the app can still access them.
Over the last few years, the LGBTQIA+ community in China has faced relentless censorship by the government.
In 2020, the country’s annual Pride celebration, Shanghai Pride, was unceremoniously shut down.
The following year, dozens of queer-related accounts on the popular messaging app WeChat were removed, and all their content was deleted.
In 2022, Grindr disappeared from China’s App Store a few days after the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched a month-long campaign to remove content it deemed problematic.
The Chinese government has also censored LGBTQIA+ content within other sectors of the entertainment sphere.
In 2021, CAC introduced a new policy banning any “effeminate” male characters, established queer relationships and characters with “no clear gender” in video games.
Films like Alien: Covenant, Bohemian Rhapsody and Together also faced censorship in China, with their LGBTQIA+ content either getting chopped or altered to fit a heterosexual narrative.
In 2018, Chinese broadcaster Mango TV cut Ireland’s performance from the Eurovision semi-finals due to the inclusion of two same-sex dancers.
Three years later, the country’s top three streaming platforms – iQiyi, Tencent Video and Alibaba’s Youku – took out a segment from the Friends reunion that celebrated the show’s LGBTQIA+ fans.
Lastly, in 2024, eagle-eyed viewers of Netflix’s hit series Arcane noticed that scenes depicting Vi and Caitlyn’s romance were either heavily censored or cut altogether.