Everybody’s Business

/ /

Google Under Fire for Allowing Users to Download ‘Conversion Therapy’ App

Google is under fire for allowing users to download a LGBTI ‘conversion therapy’ app. Religious group Living Hope Ministries offers vulnerable LGBTI teens and adults ‘gay cures’ through prayer and therapy. Every mainstream health group considers ‘gay cure’ therapy dangerous to a person’s mental and physical health. The Texas-based group refers to LGBTI people as ‘sexually broken’ individuals. Living Hope Ministries also encourages people to ‘walk out of false identities’, claiming LGBTI lifestyles are harmful. The app also falsely portrays homosexuality as an ‘addiction’, ‘sickness’, and a ‘sin’. Truth Wins Out has already been victorious in seeing the app removed […]

/ /

This Canadian Company Allegedly Provides Software to Censor LGBTI Content

A Canadian tech company has come under fire for allegedly providing filtering software censoring LGBTI content to anti-LGBTI governments. LGBTI advocacy group All Out has teamed up with Mexican organization R3D, which defends human rights in the digital world, to shed a light on the issue. The two have joined forces to urge Canadian company Netsweeper to stop providing LGBTI censorship filters to homophobic governments. Moreover, the LGBTI group wants to ensure that tech companies don’t use such technologies to violate human rights. Activists started an online petition to put an end to this LGBTI-related content censorship. They addressed Perry J. Roach, […]

/ /

Apple Pulls Anti-gay App from its Store Following Petition

Apple has removed a religious app from its online store which portrayed being gay as an ‘addiction’, ‘sickness’ and ‘sin’. Religious group, Living Hope Ministries created and owns the LHM Men’s Network app . It was pulled after a gay-rights organization petitioned against it. Truth Wins Out, which says it fights ‘anti-gay religious extremism,’ launched the petition last Thursday, US news site NBC reported. The Living Hope Ministries is a nonprofit that says it serves ‘those who are seeking sexual and relational wholeness through a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.’ Living Hope Ministries’ executive director Ricky Chelette. Photo YouTube Executive director Ricky […]

/ /

LGBT Charity Calendar Banned on Facebook for ‘Sexual Activity’

The Naked Rugby Players calendar (Facebook) An LGBT charity calendar has reportedly been banned on Facebook for containing “sexual activity” despite it not containing any. The calendar by The Naked Rugby Players, which aims to raise money for the testicular cancer charity Balls To Cancer and LGBT+ inclusive rugby, was banned from the social media platform for containing explicit content. The calendar reportedly went against Facebook’s community standards on nudity and sexuality activity, which bans content containing nudity (showing genitals), sexual activity, sexually explicit language and female nipples (except in the context of breastfeeding, birth, health and protests). However, the […]

/ /

Tumblr’s Adult Content Ban Means the Death of Unique Blogs that Explore Sexuality

This week, Tumblr announced that it would ban all adult content from its platform and said any user who was hurt by the decision could simply migrate to another site. But creators and readers alike don’t believe there’s another website that fosters the same kind of sex-positive spaces that Tumblr has. It’s as though Tumblr CEO Jeff D’Onofrio has failed to understand his own platform, how unique these communities are to Tumblr, and how unlikely it is for them to survive beyond the shutdown. “Sex wasn’t this separate, shameful thing. Tumblr allowed it to exist right next to every other […]

/ /

Grindr Head of Press Resigns Over CEO’s Opposition to Same-sex Marriage

Grindr’s director of communications Landen Rafe Zumwalt has stepped down. (LandenRafe/Twitter) Grindr’s director of communications has resigned from his role, seemingly in response to the dating app’s president saying he believes that marriage is between a man and a woman. Landen Rafe Zumwalt, who is gay, published a post on Medium on December 7, explaining that he was stepping down from his position at Grindr with “great sadness.” Zumwalt does not name Grindr president Scott Chen in his statement, but his blog post appears to be in response to Chen posting on Facebook that he agrees marriage should be “between […]

/ /

Facebook’s New Rules Ban Users from Stating their Sexuality

Facebook released a new set of community guidelines this week centered around ‘sexual solicitation’. The guidelines specifically harm LGBTI users, by disallowing them from discussing their identities. In justifying the new community guidelines, Facebook wrote in its policy rationale that the discussion of drawing ‘attention to sexual violence and exploitation’ is important, but it wants to ‘draw the line’ at content encouraging or coordinating ‘sexual encounters between adults’. The rationale for the new rules | Photo: Facebook The community guidelines then go on to detail what kind of content users are no longer allowed to post. Some of this banned […]

/ /

Chick-fil-A Banned from University Campus Over Anti-LGBT Views

A university in New Jersey, USA, has decided that a Chick-fil-A restaurant will not be built on campus because of the chain’s anti-LGBT+ views. Students at Rider University reportedly voted for the Chick-fil-A branch as their top choice for a new food outlet on campus in a poll in spring. However, in an open letter to students, the university’s president and vice-president said that Chick-fil-A had been removed from the list of options for the new campus restaurant because of its poor record on LGBT+ issues.“Although it was included in previous surveys, Chick-fil-A was removed as one of the options […]

/ /

Queer-Friendly Big Businesses to Give Your Business to

Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equalirt Index takes the ethical guesswork out of Black Friday. As quickly as Thanksgiving comes and leaves us stuffed and merry, the madness of Black Friday descends upon us. There’s nothing quite as American as the gluttony of Black Friday. With the objective being getting as many deals, deals, deals as possible, it can be easy to forget to consider where one’s dollar is going. Who’s corporate pockets are we fattening? Every year, Human Rights Campaign releases a Buyers Guide index to hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. The guide assesses whether the companies are committed to […]

/ /

Twitter Now Protects Trans People from Targeted Misgendering and Deadnaming

You can now report Twitter users for targeted deadnaming and misgendering. Twitter updated its Terms of Service last night (23 November) to protect trans people from online abuse. The new protection comes under the heading: ‘Repeated and/or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes or other content that degrades someone.’ It continues: ‘We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful steroetypes about a protected category. ‘This includes targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,’ it said. Targeted misgendering is the process of deliberately using the wrong pronouns […]

«‹ 37 38 39 40›»