Censoring Itself for Foreign Markets

Google found itself in a difficult situation as it attempted to expand into foreign markets with governments fond of censorship. Most famously, in 2006 it re-launched Google-China, agreeing to censor out topics and terms seen as politically sensitive for the country from its search results. This makes the awareness necessary for sustained organizing efforts difficult, in a country that is still without marriage equality, and has yet to put in place to guard against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation, in areas like housing and employment.

In 2015, BuzzFeed reported that Google censored gay dating app Jack’d from the Google Play Store in South Korea, where it had been the most popular gay dating app prior to its removal. It did so without even bothering to tell the developer.

“It’s one thing when a government [censors content], especially when a democratic government does it. We may not agree with it, but we can at least see the process,” Jillian York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said. “When a corporation does it—we didn’t elect these people. They have no right to do that to us.”

In 2018, Google pulled the gay dating app Blued from the Google Play Store in Indonesia, following pressure from the government to shut down all LGBTQ-related apps there.