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.
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”.