Grindr disappears from App Store in China

Norway Grindr (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Gay dating app Grindr has seemingly disappeared from the App Store in China.

The move comes after Beijing said it would launch a crackdown on online content. The new attempts to police internet discussion – which ostensibly focuses on online misinformation, pornography and illegal content – come ahead of the city hosting the Winter Olympics.

And the change affects not only Apple’s App Store for the iPhone and other devices, but also Android app listings run by Tencent and Hauwei. Google does not run the Play Store in China.

Chinese-owned competitors to Grindr, such as Blued, remain available on the iPhone’s App Store and other devices.

But Grindr itself has disappeared from listings, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the changes. It is thought to have disappeared on iOS on 27 January, it said, citing mobile research firm Qimai.

It was preceded by weeks of problems with the app, including disappearing messages that would not send and other features that did not work as expected.

Grindr was itself once Chinese-owned. But in 2020 it was sold to investors, in line with a rule on US sanctions.

China has proven a difficult market for many tech companies, including Apple. Regulators regularly demand the removal of content and impose other restrictions.

Some US companies – including Google and its Play Store, as well as LinkedIn and Yahoo – have chosen either never to fully join the market or to leave it behind, citing regulatory problems and other legal issues.