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By Chris Lau, Steven Jiang, CNN Hong Kong/Beijing (CNN) — Two of China’s most popular gay-dating apps have disappeared from app stores in the country, reinforcing fears of a widening crackdown on LGBTQ+ groups and online content. Blued and Finka were not available on Apple’s App Store as of Tuesday and the apps had been erased from locally adapted platforms that serve Android devices. The Google Play Store app is blocked in China as part of the government’s vast censorship apparatus known as the ‘Great Firewall’. China operates one of the world’s most extensive online censorship and surveillance regimes that scrubs political dissent and criticism of the ruling Communist Party’s leadership and ideologies, including a drive against feminine portrayals of men in pop culture. China’s LGBTQ+ community has faced an intensifying crackdown since Xi Jinping came to power more than a decade ago. Authorities have ramped up control over what they consider the undue influence of Western values, with Pride parades canceled, films and TV shows featuring same-sex themes banned, and China’s most popular messaging app WeChat shutting down dozens of LGBTQ accounts. There has been no official announcement about the apps’ removal from the app stores in China, where regulators routinely remove content without explanation. But a source familiar with the matter told CNN that it appeared to be related to compliance issues. CNN has reached out to Apple, Blued, Finka and the Cyberspace Administration of China for comment. The apps have been accused of carrying pornography or “vulgar content” on its platforms, the source said. Apple said it removed the apps from its China store after a request from the country’s internet regulator, tech website Wired reported. “Based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we have removed these two apps from the China storefront only,” the phone maker said in a statement to Wired, adding: “We follow the laws in the countries where we operate.” Blued’s international version HeeSay remains searchable on app stores outside of China, while Finka operates solely within the country. The apps are hugely popular, with Blued reported as having 54 million registered users worldwide in 2020 and Finka 2.7 million, according to state media CGTN. Tightening space The latest narrowing of LGBTQ+ space came as the Supreme Court in the US declined to revisit its landmark precedent recognizing same-sex marriage. The Trump administration, however, has been scaling back federal diversity programs while piling pressure on the private sector to end similar initiatives. China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 but does not recognize same-sex marriage. This is not the first time China has reined in gay-dating apps. Grindr, which targets the international market, was removed from mobile app stores in China in 2022, citing difficulties to comply with a new privacy law. Blued, launched in 2012 to offer the local market a more approachable alternative, continued to operate alongside its rival Finka, which targets a younger demographic. Blued’s parent company BlueCity acquired Finka in 2020, a year after its debut. One user, surnamed Zhao, told CNN that the two apps enabled friends to meet especially in the less cosmopolitan parts of the country where places for gay people to gather are almost non-existent. “I just feel that there hasn’t been that much space offline for the gay community to begin with. Now that the online space is also being restricted, I feel that the space of the community is getting smaller and smaller,” said the 30-year-old, who gave only his family name for fear of speaking out against the authorities. It’s unclear if their removal from Chinese app stores is permanent. Reinstatement is possible if the companies take steps to comply with Chinese regulators, the source who spoke to CNN said, although they were not optimistic, citing the tightening “ideological environment.” “Things are just difficult right now,” the source said, adding that Blued would likely have to “lay low and even transform” to survive.
