{"id":5777,"date":"2018-12-24T18:06:23","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T18:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/google-and-amazon-urged-to-follow-apples-anti-gay-app-ban\/"},"modified":"2018-12-24T18:06:23","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T18:06:23","slug":"google-and-amazon-urged-to-follow-apples-anti-gay-app-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/google-and-amazon-urged-to-follow-apples-anti-gay-app-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Google and Amazon urged to follow Apple&#8217;s &#8216;anti-gay app ban&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"Tim Cook\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/D420\/production\/_104940345_07caf756-0105-4a19-8ca3-d1e823cf3628.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Apple&#8217;s chief executive was thanked for the app&#8217;s removal from its store<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Campaigners have thanked Apple for removing an app from its store that they said stigmatised LGBT people.<\/p>\n<p>The software promoted a US religious group that says homosexual practice is sinful and that its members should help &#8220;call up&#8221; others to their natural-born &#8220;biblical gender&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Apple&#8217;s store now says the app is not available, but the tech firm has not commented on the matter.<\/p>\n<p>Google and Amazon continue to offer Android versions of the app.<\/p>\n<p>The Christian organisation involved, Living Hope Ministries, has told NBC News <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/apple-pulls-religious-app-accused-portraying-homosexuality-sickness-sin-n951361\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">that it plans to challenge Apple&#8217;s action<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Arlington, Texas-based body is not related to a UK-based church that goes by the same name.<\/p>\n<p>Apple&#8217;s rules state <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/app-store\/review\/guidelines\/#objectionable-content\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">that apps should not include content<\/a> that is &#8220;defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited&#8221; including commentary about sexual orientation.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">&#8216;Dehumanising app&#8217;<\/h2>\n<p>Living Hope Ministries&#8217; app had been on the iOS App Store for several years, but was flagged as objectionable <a href=\"https:\/\/truthwinsout.org\/pressrelease\/2018\/12\/41233\/\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">by Truth Wins Out on Thursday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">Google<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Google indicates that the app has been installed from the Play store less than 1,000 times<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Chicago-headquartered non-profit campaigns against homophobia. <\/p>\n<p>It launched an online petition against the app after the group&#8217;s founder claimed to have been given &#8220;the run-around&#8221; by Apple&#8217;s staff when he called them to complain about the app&#8217;s existence on its platform.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, Apple&#8217;s chief executive Tim Cook became the first Fortune 500 <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2018\/10\/24\/tech\/tim-cook-gay-apple\/index.html\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">company leader to announce he was homosexual<\/a>, and earlier this year told CNN that being gay was &#8220;God&#8217;s greatest gift to me&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Although it is not known whether he had anything to do with the subsequent removal of the app from Apple&#8217;s online store, Truth Wins Out personally thanked him and his company for &#8220;exemplifying corporate responsibility&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>But it added: &#8220;Google and Amazon [must] immediately stop selling and promoting this app, which dehumanises LGBT people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The executive director of Living Hope Ministries, Ricky Chelette, said he had not been told in advance that the app would be removed from Apple&#8217;s store and denied it was a hate organisation.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC understands Google intends to review the product and will remove it if it believes it <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/about\/restricted-content\/inappropriate-content\/hate-speech\/\" class=\"story-body__link-external\">contravenes its ban on content that incites hatred<\/a> against individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon is also looking into the matter.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-46672559\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Image caption Apple&#8217;s chief executive was thanked for the app&#8217;s removal from its store Campaigners have thanked Apple for removing an app from its store that they said stigmatised LGBT people. The software promoted a US religious group that says homosexual practice is sinful and that its members should help &#8220;call up&#8221; &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}