Google and Apple have refused to pull dangerous apps in the past. The Absher app is still on both Google Play and the App Store, oppressing women in Saudi Arabia. There, oppressing women is not only legal, it’s the law. While neither Apple nor Google have had the courage to defend their decisions to allow this hurtful app to remain, it’s likely due to the influence Saudi Arabia has over the company. The country may have large investments, for example. I can see no other reason why two large tech companies would decide to allow an app that actively oppresses women, unless they, like the country the app originates from, are just truly, deeply evil. But that doesn’t seem likely.
It’s also hard to see why Google would choose to keep an app that advocates for conversion therapy. Conversion therapy, if you didn’t know, is the completely disproved idea that a person’s sexuality or gender can be forcibly or willfully changed. The practice has a high suicide rate, as it teaches people they can change, and, if they don’t, they’re evil. Naturally, no one can change their gender or sexuality, leading many into this trap.
Conversion therapy is banned in numerous U.S. states, as well as a few countries. It’s a harmful practice that not only never achieves the results it sets out to achieve, but causes long lasting psychological harm if the people survive. Forcing it on a child is nothing short of torture and child abuse. Yes. Torture. I’m not using that term lightly.
That’s why it’s both heartbreaking and infuriating to see that Google, unlike Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, has refused to remove an app that advocates conversion therapy from Google Play.
The App
We’ve discussed the Living Hope Ministries app before. Apple removed this app when it came to their attention months ago. The app calls LGBTQ people a “sickness,” telling them they’re “afflicted with sin.” The app advocates conversion therapy, a harmful practice that the American Psychological Association has explicitly banned because it’s extremely harmful.
Children are especially at risk from apps like this. Because of the persecution LGBTQ people face already, suicide rates are far higher among those who aren’t “straight.” The highest is among transgender people, with 40% reporting suicide attempts during their lifetime. However, if an LGBTQ child is raised in a loving and accepting home, that rate drops. Suicide rates of children whose parents tried to force them to change their sexual orientation are double those of LGBTQ children with loving and accepting parents.
Imagine that, an app can help double the chance of a child killing themselves. And Google refuses to remove it.
Apps like this shame children and increase suicide rates among children, teenagers, and even adults. They do not perform the goals they seek, only hurt those who, desperate to conform, come to them for help.
What Google Needs to Do
This is a cut and dry case. It’s not an issue of religious liberty. The rights of one person cannot be used to hurt someone else. If it is your “religion” to hurt children, you do not get the right to hurt children. It’s that simple. Personal faiths and individual rights end the moment they hurt someone else.
This app hurts children. That puts it at odds with Google’s guidelines for apps on the Google Play Store. Not only is it targeting children and teenagers with harmful content, it’s encouraging self harm. This app is in violation of Google’s own rules, and, furthermore, removing it is the only decent thing to do.
Yet Google refuses to remove the app. They’ve had months to comply.
Google Won’t Budge
To keep this app up is an act of hate. The Trevor Project works to help LGBTQ youth and anyone seeking to harm themselves connect with someone who can talk them down. Its CEO, Amit Paley, tried to reach out to Google executives, as did representatives with the Human Rights Campaign. However, Google executives have refused to meet with representatives from either group. There has been some communication through email, however, Google hasn’t budged.
Furthermore, Google has taken the Apple approach to harmful apps. They’ve refused to publicly address the issue. As of this writing, over 140,000 people have signed a change.org petition asking Google to remove the app. If you want to push Google to remove this hateful and harmful app, you can do the same.
While child suicide may not be enough of a motivator for Google, perhaps angry customers willing to leave their services behind will convince the company to do the right thing.
Source: Ina Fried, Axios