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.
“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’.
I mean, what was the rationale for the regulation? Its not like enshitification of apps is some novel event unique to American-centric businesses. Did Blued/Finka become a cesspool of degenerate AI slop and scam ads like so many other popular social media platforms? Is there any legitimate reason why this company was targeted beyond “China hates gays”?
Did the Apple Executives get handed a serious list of problems with the app and choose to de-platform it rather than try and patch a sinking ship? Or is Cook just a cuck for Chinese Communism?
Cheers to that. But if you’re side-loading everything, you’re not really worried about what’s hosted on the Apple Store to begin with. Why is an executive decision to delist an app from a proprietary service a problem?
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.
I thought the trouble with appeasement was that you surrendered turf until you were backed out of a defensible position.
The Chinese economy is not the enemy of the Apple retail sector. And it never has been. They’ve been hand-in-glove for decades.
It’s a profit-maximizing strategy and its how every capitalist enterprise operates.
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.
What? F-droid isn’t going anywhere afaik.
Not yet, but it is in real danger.
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
Fuck Google and all, but don’t dismiss used tech like that. There’s absolute bangers out there going for prices that shouldn’t be reasonable for the value you get out of them with proper software.
Like ThinkPads and Linux, although worse and not entirely semiofficial.
I’m not hating on used hardware for no reason. I’m running an old Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th Gen myself, dual-booting Zorin OS and MacOS.
But it’s no secret that Pixel phones have subpar battery life even when new, and it certainly doesn’t help that Google artificially reduces battery capacity with age
Fair enough. Thanks for the proof!
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.