July 8, 2021

Chinese tech giant Tencent’s social media platform WeChat has deleted dozens of LGBT accounts belonging to university students, some of whom allegedly violated online information rules, raising fears of a crackdown on online homosexual content.

Members of several LGBT groups said access to their accounts was blocked late Tuesday and all content deleted.

Homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in China until 2001 when it became legal, but this year a court upheld a university’s description of homosexuality as a “psychological disorder.”

LGBT groups have repeatedly faced censorship, and the Cyberspace Administration of China recently pledged to clean up the internet to protect minors and crackdown on social media deemed a “bad influence.”

For more information, read the original story in Reuters.