Chinese authorities have directed the removal of two leading gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, from mobile app stores across the country, Apple confirmed to AFP on Tuesday.
The move underscores the government’s tightening restrictions on LGBTQ+ expression under President Xi Jinping, amid a broader campaign to control online content and regulate digital platforms.
Same-sex marriage remains illegal in China, and despite growing awareness, discrimination against LGBTQ+ communities is still widespread. Activists have expressed growing concern that official actions against queer visibility and advocacy have intensified in recent years.
Over the weekend, social media users in China noticed that Blued and Finka, both owned by a Hong Kong-based company, had been removed from Apple’s and Android’s Chinese app stores.
“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 AFP. The spokesperson added, “We follow the laws in the countries where we operate.”
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) the country’s top internet regulator and censorship authority has in recent months penalized several platforms over content moderation issues.
Earlier this year, the developer of Finka had voluntarily withdrawn the app from stores outside China, while Blued remained available only within China.
As of Tuesday, a limited “express version” of Blued was still available for download in China’s App Store, while the international version, known as HeeSay, continues to operate globally. HeeSay describes itself as a platform connecting “54 million LGBTQ+ individuals worldwide.”
This isn’t the first instance of such action: Grindr, another popular gay dating app, was removed from Chinese app stores in 2022, during a CAC-led online “clean-up” campaign ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Blued, which had remained accessible during that crackdown, now appears to be the latest casualty in China’s ongoing digital censorship push targeting LGBTQ+ platforms.
