Google removes popular gay dating app from its online store in Indonesia

In a shocking move, Google has removed one of the world's largest gay dating apps from its Indonesia Play Store after a crackdown on the LGBT community by the government.

In fact, Indonesian officials called for tech giant to remove 73 LGBT-related applications, including dating services, from its Play Store, and urged people to shun apps that broke with cultural norms in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.

Speaking about it, Communications ministry spokesman Noor Iza confirmed Wednesday that gay dating no longer appeared in the Google Play Store available to Indonesian users.

Read also: Mr Gay World India 2018: One needs to accept themselves as they are

Speaking to AFP, she said, “'There was some negative content related to pornography inside the application. Probably one or some members of the application put the pornographic content inside.”

Google declined to say whether it would comply with the government demand to remove dozens of LGBT-related apps.

Although homosexuality and gay sex are legal in Indonesia, same-sex relationships are widely frowned upon. Public displays of affection between gay couples are almost unheard of. Indonesia also has a harsh anti-pornography law that is at times used by police to criminalise members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

The governments ban on gay applications joins growing hostility towards the LGBT community in Indonesia, where the community has been targeted in raids on 'gay sex' parties in Jakarta and Surabaya.