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.
Look out, the tankies will swarm to deny that this problem exists.
One of them already downvoted you. I’m sure that more of them are coming.
that’s generally one of the bad things about china.
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.
okay, hear me out - sure, the apps need to be removed from the app store
why can’t people just install them separately anyways?
It took the EU to force Apple to allow sideloading and Apple obviously implemented it horribly.
You’re from Android ecosystem right?
Does China know Tim Cook is gay? Does Tim Cook?
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.
Yes, but he’s straight for pay.
Currently on a business trip where it’s technically illegal for me to exist. Feeling this comment.
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.
“Yes, dear leader.” - Timmy Apple
I’d love to give this a simple upvote. What is Tim Cook’s choice here? Operate illegally in China until the government shuts down their entire source of revenue in an entire market which, also, is the one that produces nearly all of its hardware?
If he doesn’t do it - shareholders will remove him in the blink of an eye and replace him with someone who will.
Where I’m agreeing though is - my current phone is my last Apple phone. I’ll be going with Graphene after this. I don’t want corporations telling me what software I can and can’t run on my decides while surveilling me.
Any pushback, any moralization, any sort of semblance of a spine.
Not just ‘fuck LGBTQ’.
Don’t you worry, Android is about to get locked down too and the biggest open source app store already said they are going to close up shop. It’s all going to shit.
Better be smart and buy a phone that runs well with PostmarketOS or Ubuntu Touch if you desire freedom.the biggest open source app store already said they are going to close up shop.
What? F-droid isn’t going anywhere afaik.
The trouble with appeasement is that you’re eventually pushed to the point where you won’t cave anymore. You say no. And they punish you for it.
And now, all that appeasement has meant nothing. You sold your soul, you didn’t fight back, you did damage to yourself or your reputation or your customers or whatever. But you’re right where you would have been if you didn’t appease at all.
You have an enemy. If you didn’t, they wouldn’t be making you do terrible things. Do you want to tell them no to their face now? Or after they’ve recruited you into their scheme for years?
It’s sunk cost fallacy as international strategy and it’s terrible.
This is literally the same argument that Elon made in defense of censoring Twitter in Turkey.
I’m sure it is. My point is - what do Lemmy users expect out of a for-profit company operating inside of a capitalistic economic system? Saying “no” to China’s LGBT hating demands is impossible in this situation.
Same, just holding onto my iPhone 11 till the graphene phone comes out
You could probably sell your phone and get an older Pixel for pretty much nothing if you wanted to swap now.
Yeah, and get the garbage standby battery life that every recent Pixel with a Google Tensor SOC has, let alone one with a degraded battery
Can’t really say for the older devices, but I have a recent Pixel, and its battery life in my experience has been pretty close to my old (but still newer than OP’s) iPhone. Maybe I just use my phone differently than most people, but I never had amazing battery life with iPhones.
Please please please be a good phone. I feel like that’ll be great. I’d like a Linux phone, but I can’t see that shaping up as a Linux reliable daily driver in the next couple of years.
Buy a inexpensive compatible Pixel Device that can run graphene OS and try it out.
Ah yes, the socialist utopia.
China is not a socialist utopia. The average Chinese person still has a better quality of life then the average American, because America is a capitalist hellhole.
Both are shitholes mate. If gay people don’t have rights, no one does. Let’s not get into a dick measuring contest, because you’re both looking pretty inverted right now.
live there then, im chinese i can tell you dont know want to live under ccp if you are not white and wealthy, promoting thier propaganda.
Yes, if you are part of the mostly culturally homogeneous majority, hold no views that the state has arbitrarily determined are verboten, are not in some way part of the many groups that have been arbitrarily determined to be verboten (such as increasingly LGBT individuals), are fine with a leader who is set to rule for life, are not below a certain age and unable to get a job in the ruthless job market, live in a city rather than a rural village with poor future prospects, are fine with widespread surveillance in said city far beyond most of the West (UK might give them a run for their money here), are male, and so on, I’m sure it’s a lovely place to live.
Using America as the example is just funny. Did I say anything about America being good? America is an utterly dysfunctional state. Ironically, it seems both the Chinese govt and Trump’s admin agree that gay people shouldn’t exist. Pretty sad given that things had been trending in a positive direction for LGBT people maybe 15 years ago in China.
If the horseshoe fits…
You have to acquit
no wait
Well, in a socialist society, the purpose of romantic and sexual relationships is to bring into being the next generation of workers to build socialism, and relationships which don’t do this are bourgeois decadence.
i cant tell if this is mockery or not
That’s the best kind of satire.
When they’re talking about owning the means of production, it’s manufacturing, not reproduction
The same can be said of capitalism with the purpose being to build capital, yet its not illegal to not have kids
Yet. Look around you at the fascist anti-gay capitalists in the growing western politics.
In other words, force gay people to have straight marriages. I’m sure those will be functional and healthy relationships that aid the state. Not like that hasn’t resulted in numerous suicides.
To put it simply, this is just ignoring reality and trying to stamp your own superficial views of society over it.
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.
I mean, it didn’t stop them from disobeying laws in western countries and the EU. They will comply when they know there’s no way to wiggle out of it
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.
Remember that above all else, rich people identify as rich. All the divides on gender or sexual/romantical preferences are secondary to the rich yes/no question.
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.
Same logic applies to the nazis.
