Apple has a completely different policy in each of the countries where it is present. A clear example is in China, where it acts in a completely different way than it does in most Western countries, due to pressure from the Chinese government.
However, it is not the only country, with Russia and Saudi Arabia being the other of the two countries in which Apple is forced to keep your principles in a pocket in order to maintain its presence in the country. In this sense, a digital rights group has denounced Apple for allowing governments to censor LGBTQ content.
According to groups Fight for the future Yes Big fire, both based in China, claim that Apple blocks apps in 152 app stores worldwide. The report released by the two groups documents 1,377 cases in which LGTBQ requests are unavailable due to censorship from the respective governments, with Saudi Arabia being the country that blocks the most requests with 28.
In second position, it is China, with 27 apps banned from the App Store, followed by United Arab Emirates with 25, Ghana with 24 and Nigeria with 23. In first place are Australia, Canada and the United States with no candidatures blocked and the United Kingdom with 2 candidacies.
Most countries with a high number of applications have a poor record on gay human rights. The same report claims that Apple continues to allow censorship of such apps in countries like Niger and South Korea where homosexuality is legalized, countries which are also in the top 10 countries where more LGTBQ apps are blocked in the App Store.
Según afirman Evan Greer, director of Fight For The Future:
Apple is putting up rainbow flags in its marketing operations in the United States, but in the meantime it is actively helping governments around the world to isolate, silence and oppress LGBTQ people. Apple’s draconian monopoly on the App Store and the inability to install applications outside the App Store make this discrimination and censorship possible.
This same organization states that many of these applications have chosen to provide internet access bypass the censorship that Apple is obliged to exercise. In countries where these websites are blocked by the government, the only option left for users is to use VPN services.
