In 2022, popular US-based gay dating app Grindr was removed from Apple's App Store in China shortly after the Cyberspace Administration of China began a crackdown on content it viewed as illegal and inappropriate.
The following year, the Chinese government announced new rules requiring all apps serving domestic users to register for licenses, resulting in a slew of foreign apps being removed online.
The online regulator said the rules were designed to "promote the standardised and healthy development of the internet industry."
Homosexuality was decriminalised in China in 1997, though same-sex marriages remain unrecognised.
Advocacy groups, including the Beijing LGBT Center and the ShanghaiPride, have ceased operations in China in recent years.