Apple removes gay dating apps from Chinese app store
Apple has removed two of China’s most widely used gay dating apps from the Chinese App Store, marking a troubling development for the LGBTQ community in a country where queer rights are already repressed. Over the weekend, two of China’s biggest gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, suddenly disappeared from the app store, WIRED reported. … Read More
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Apple has removed two of China’s most widely used gay dating apps from the Chinese App Store, marking a troubling development for the LGBTQ community in a country where queer rights are already repressed.
Over the weekend, two of China’s biggest gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, suddenly disappeared from the app store, WIRED reported. While existing users who had already downloaded the apps reportedly retain access, new downloads have been blocked.
“We follow the laws in the countries where we operate," Apple said about the removal of the apps, according to WIRED. "Based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we have removed these two apps from the China storefront only."
Blued, launched in 2012, became China’s largest gay dating platform, amassing around 40 million registered users. Its rival, Finka, launched in 2019 and acquired around 2 million users. In 2020, Finka was bought by BlueCity, Blued’s parent company, bringing both platforms under the same organization until 2022, when NewBorn Town acquired BlueCity.
China’s Cyberspace Administration, the country’s top internet regulator, has increasingly targeted LGBTQ content in an effort to prevent disruptions to the “social order” as it relates to traditional, nuclear family values.
These sudden disappearances succeed Apple’s removal of Grindr, the popular international gay dating app, from the Chinese App Store in 2022. Each of these instances reflects a broader campaign of digital censorship targeting LGBTQ content and community in China.
Although China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997, same-sex marriage remains illegal and LGBTQ individuals are not recognized by the Chinese government. Members of the community continue to face systemic discrimination, such as not being able to adopt or make important medical decisions for their partners. In recent years, LGBTQ activists and organizations have faced growing restrictions and surveillance, with many groups being forced to shut down because of state pressure.
This emphasis on traditional values coincides with China’s declining birth rate, which has continued to fall despite the end of the One-Child Policy in 2016 and the introduction of a three-child policy in 2021. The current birth rate is 10.31 births per 1,000 people, or approximately 1 child per woman. Some suggest that the renewed push for conventional family structures and the censorship of queer content reflects the government's efforts to address demographic decline by promoting heteronormativity.
While the removal of these dating apps has taken away a key digital space for China’s queer community, there have been small advancements. In 2024, a landmark court case in Beijing acknowledged that a child can legally have two mothers, marking a small victory for LGBTQ+ activists in the country.
