The removal of Blued and Finka marks another setback for China’s LGBTQ+ community.
Apple has removed two of the most popular gay dating apps in China from the App Store after receiving an order from China’s main internet regulator and censorship authority, WIRED has learned. The move comes as reports of Blued and Finka disappearing from the iOS App Store and several Android app stores circulated on Chinese social media over the weekend. The apps appear to still be functional for users in the country who already have them downloaded.
“We follow the laws in the countries where we operate. Based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we have removed these two apps from the China storefront only,” an Apple spokesperson said in an email. Apple clarified that the apps have not been available in other countries for some time. “Earlier this year, the developer of Finka elected to remove the app from storefronts outside of China, and Blued was available only in China.”
Mennonites in Dexter are leaving Maine for religious reasons after the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV), headed by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, refused an accommodation that would allow them to avoid violating their religious objections to commercial insurance.
Mark Nolt, a Mennonite father of 13 living in Dexter, spoke with The Maine Wire on Wednesday about his decision to leave the state along with other members of his religious community.
“We’ve been working with the state now for six-and-a-half years on that, and just finally chose to give up and move out of state to be able to hold to our convictions,” Nolt told The Maine Wire.
Nolt explained that their troubles with Maine’s state government stem from their religious prohibition on commercial insurance, including vehicle insurance, which Maine requires.
Mennonites eschew commercial insurance for a few reasons, he explained, including a belief that they should rely on their own community for support rather than on outside corporations. According to Nolt, they also believe that insurance takes away from trust in God and leads to a more careless outlook on life.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials on Friday evening arrested more than two dozen pastors across at least seven provinces who are part of the underground Zion Church network, extending what China Aid called “the most extensive and coordinated wave of persecution against urban independent house churches in China in over four decades.” Details on both the charges and the total number of arrests remain thin, but one U.S.-based Zion Church pastor, Sean Long, said the pastors may be charged with “illegal dissemination of religious content via the internet.”
“More than thirty pastors, ministers, and Christian leaders have been arbitrarily detained, disappeared, or placed under house arrest,” according to China Aid. “Their homes and worship venues have been ransacked, property confiscated, and their families harassed.”
Christianity has faced official persecution in China ever since the communist takeover of China enshrined atheism as the state religion and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution exerted totalitarian control over the daily life of his subjects.
Despite this fact, China likely has one of the largest Christian populations of any country in the world. Statistics on the underground church are, by definition, hard to find, but estimates on China’s Christian population range up to 100 million, more than the membership of the CCP, and growing.
The CCP has responded to the perceived threat of Christianity by pressuring its subjects to join state-sanctioned churches, which offer a theology in which biblical truth has become subservient to the state.
Zion Church is an unregistered, underground Protestant church network in China, founded in 2007 by Pastor Jin Mingri, also known as Ezra Jin, in Beijing. It has grown to become one of the largest house churches in the country, with an estimated 10,000 congregants across 40 cities, operating through unofficial gatherings in homes, restaurants, and online platforms like Zoom and WeChat. As of October 2025, the church is facing a major crackdown, with Pastor Jin Mingri detained in Guangxi Province and over 30 church leaders arrested nationwide, prompting international condemnation and calls for their release.
For those having trouble following along with all of the controversy within “public health” as practiced in USA, vaccines, and medical practice.
When you distill it all, it comes down to the rights of the individual versus the rights of the collective.
Modern “Public health” is all about maximizing the greatest happiness for the greatest number, and acts to advance the rights and interests of the collective. Traditional medical practice is focused on the rights and interests of the individual patient.
From this, you can appreciate why socialists and leftists are all in on the rights of “Public Health” to impose mandates, and those that support personal liberty are aligned with the medical rights of the individual and the importance of informed consent.
“Public health” in USA believes that the rights of the collective are more important than the rights of the individual.
The work of Karl Marx and colleagues supports the collective as pre-eminent. The US Constitution and associated founding documents disagree and emphasize the rights of the individual.
Collectivism vs individual rights. That is really what this is all about.
American Buddhist Net 