Blued and Finka were removed from Apple’s App Store.
LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance have taken another hit in China, with Apple removing two of the countries biggest LGBTQ+ dating apps. Wired reports that Blued and Finka are no longer available on the iOS App Store or certain Android App Stores following orders from the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet regulator and censor.
Apple told Wired that it must “follow the laws in the countries where we operate.” Both dating apps were available solely in China, where LGBTQ+ dating apps are minimal — Grindr, for instance, hasn’t been available on Apple since 2022. Blued exists internationally under the name HeeSay.
China has increasingly cracked down on LGBTQ+ individuals’ rights and groups in recent years, allegedly shuttering large organizations like the Beijing LGBT Center in 2023. For reasons unknown, Blued previously stopped new registrations this past July, with individuals buying second-hand accounts to use the app. However, it reopened in the middle of August.
Ok so… make an app for finding “friends” and leave it up to users to discuss whether they want to slob knobs or paint miniatures or whatever
And just when Apple updated their logo to be a raindbow
I still think of it looking like it did the first time I encountered it.
What the hell are the GOP gonna use to find the all male orgies when the my visit their handlers in china?
that’s generally one of the bad things about china.
And Apple, if they comply.
apple goes without saying. fuck google too for good measure.
China has increasingly cracked down on LGBTQ+ individuals’ rights and groups in recent years
Yeah, it has a conservative streak disguised as post-Deng communism where the only freedom there is to make money and rip off another fellow citizen, anywhere from dating scams and pig butchering to tofu-dreg products.
Part of the problem with “China Bad” articles is that they tend to report “Thing Happened” without diving into the “Here’s Why”. If you get past the Engadget article that’s just a four paragraph click-through/reprint of the Wired article and read the original piece, there’s at least a bit more meat on the bone.
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-removes-gay-dating-apps-china-app-store/
In July, Blued abruptly stopped new user registration without giving an explanation, according to Chinese social media posts. For a month, Chinese users who wanted to get on the platform were paying as much as $20 for secondhand Blued accounts on ecommerce websites. But registration resumed in mid-August.
In 2020, BlueCity, the parent company of Blued, went public. It announced that the app had over 49 million registered users and over 6 million monthly active users. The same year, BlueCity said it was acquiring Finka, its main competitor in China, for about $33 million. The company delisted in 2022 and was acquired by Newborn Town, a Hong Kong–listed social media firm. Most of the longtime employees of Blued, including its founder Ma Baoli, left the company after the acquisition, says a former Blued employee who asked not to be named for privacy reasons.
In 2024, Blued rebranded its international version of the app to HeeSay, which became popular among users in India, Pakistan, and the Philippines, according to The Wall Street Journal. HeeSay remains available in app stores.
So the apps merged, then were traded, had the team gutted, and the app pivoted to serving an entirely new audience of users.
Why would this provoke a response from a Chinese regulator? Idk. Would be great to find out further details from the news outlet itself, rather than just getting another “China hates gay people” superficial response.
It doesn’t look like the Cyberspace Administration of China purged all gay dating apps from their behind-the-firewall app store. So it seems premature to conclude this is a new vast pogrom against gay dating. Was Blued/Finka filling up with scams to the point that a regulator stepped in? Was there some kind of personal beef between the new owners and the Chinese regulatory agency? Did a bribe not get paid? Is this actually the beginning of a vast pogrom against all dating apps?
No fucking clue. And nobody doing the reporting seems to be interested in following up and asking.
“Yes, dear leader.” - Timmy Apple
Does China know Tim Cook is gay? Does Tim Cook?
Tim Cook absolutely doesn’t
I’m sure he’s happy to fuck all Apple customers for money if he thinks he can get away with it, which strictly speaking would make him Pansexual.
Is it really pansexual when you fist them, but jerk off?
It’s not about being gay. It’s mostly about casual dating/casual sex, which are both a social taboo in China. Most dating apps are basically sex apps, so China bans them. Tinder has been banned for a while. It’s the same for LGBT and other apps.
It probably has something to do with the LGBT movement as well, but I can’t say for sure here.
I think it’s part of the effort to curb the population decrease. It’s not in the culture to pearl clutch about LGBTQ+ people as morally wrong like western cultures.
They are trying anything to influence people to make babies. Stricter pornography rules, shaming women for not making babies, shaming “feminine men”, and that includes banning dating apps that helps indulge in activities that don’t help with making babies. Making queer people less visible is unfortunately part of the strategy.
Though queer media is however not as banned as people think, so far at least.
Yes, but he’s straight for pay.
Currently on a business trip where it’s technically illegal for me to exist. Feeling this comment.
china doesnt care if you have tons of cash, thats why asians love westerners that are wealthy or well off, they want to be them. and thats why alot of tend towards conservatism too(at least the older ones) john xina, DWAYNE johnson, and some white influencers cater to the country.
More importantly does Tim Cook know he’s Ellen DeGeneres?
He can’t hear you over the sound of all the money entering his bank account.
okay, hear me out - sure, the apps need to be removed from the app store
why can’t people just install them separately anyways?
Sort of the unanswered question here. Why was the app removed?
“China hates gays” is just the default western-facing answer. But there’s no coverage of the actual regulatory decision other than that Apple claims to have responded to it. Hell, the article linked on Engadget is just a partial reprint of the original Wired article, which reveals the two apps are owned by the same parent company, which had fired the original development team and pivoted the app’s audience to India and Pakistan.
Folks on here who are fully familiar with the enshitification of American-centric apps seem flabbergasted at the notion that a foreign country with its own regulatory board might censor an app for any reason other than “Hates Gays”.
You’re from Android ecosystem right?
how could you tell?
lol
Apple told Wired that it must “follow the laws in the countries where we operate.”
Businesses always lie about supporting queer causes. They only care about the money.
If it was more profitable to be fascist nazis, that’s what they would do.
As someone else mentioned, if he didn’t cave & risked losing the China market, the board would replace him in a heartbeat with someone who will do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing.
I can only imagine this pains him to do seeing as he’s gay himself.
The dude gave a fucking golden statue to Trump. He doesn’t give a shit about other gays, he got his billions and bent the knee. Fuck him and fuck apple.
Sometimes you have to do the distasteful stuff to keep doing the good. If you’ve never been in that position, someday you will.
Obviously you and I have polar opposite definitions of “doing good”.
Same logic applies to the nazis.
