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'Mass Effect Legendary Edition' doesn't add same-sex romance to the originals
Jack really was into you, though.
Facebook's political ad policy also blocked LGBT messages
Facebook's tougher political advertising policy has had more unintended side-effects. The Washington Post has discovered that the social network inadvertently blocked dozens of LGBT-themed ads after its screening system (which includes automated and human moderators) deemed them political. Most didn't contain advocacy or obvious political leanings -- the only common link was a reference to LGBT keywords. When the ad runners complained to Facebook, it responded more than once that mentioning LGBT made it about civil rights and thus a "political topic."
Apple's Pride-themed watch face is blocked in Russia
Russia's not made any secret of its stance on the LGBTQ+ community. It's banned comics, gotten rid of statues and has taken issue with gay emojis, all in the name of its "gay propaganda" law, passed in 2013. Now, companies that want to operate in the country and are otherwise advocates for LGTBQ+ rights are being forced to fall in line. As iOS developer Guilherme Rambo recently discovered, Apple's Pride-themed Apple Watch face has been "hardcoded to not show up if the paired iPhone is using the Russian locale."
Weibo reverses planned purge of LGBT content
Last Friday, China's social network Weibo said it had plans to remove violent and gay-themed content on its platform in order to comply with strict new Chinese cybersecurity regulations. Now, however, after many users of the Twitter-like system protested the removal of LGBT content, the company has relented, saying that the main purpose of its cleanup efforts is to remove pornographic, violent and gory content, not homosexuality.
Twitter explains why it blocked LGBT-related searches
This past weekend, searches for LGBT-related terms on Twitter like "#bisexual" and "#gay" simply stopped working. The hashtags yielded no results regardless of people's content settings, leading to accusations that the platform is deliberately silencing LGBT voices. Twitter, however, said it was an honest mistake, and now it has revealed more details about the issue, including why it happened and what it's doing to fix things.
Twitter will fix broken searches for LGBT material
More than a few LGBT Twitter users were alarmed this weekend when searches for relevant terms (such as #bisexual and #gay) no longer produced results, regardless of what their content settings were. At the least, it made discussions unnecessarily difficult; some even accused Twitter of deliberately silencing LGBT voices. However, it looks like those queries will go back to normal soon. Twitter said it has pinpointed an "error" with search results for key terms and hopes to fix the problem as soon as it can. The social network didn't have more to say beyond the tweet when we reached out, but it should have more to say in the future.
Apple and Microsoft address Orlando, avoid gay community
Early Sunday morning, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., became the home of the deadliest mass shooting in US history. The following morning Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft's Phil Spencer took the stage at separate, preplanned press conferences to offer support from "the Apple community" and "the gaming community," respectively, before launching into their regularly scheduled hyperbolic outpourings of consumer enthusiasm. In doing so, they not only undermined the tragedy, they ignored the community it most affected.
Grindr sells majority stake to a Chinese gaming company
The majority stake of gay dating app Grindr is now in the hands of Beijing Kunlun, a Chinese gaming firm. The company will pick up 60 percent of the app, which it valued at $155 million. "We have users in every country in the world, but in order to get to the next phase of our business and grow faster, we needed a partner," Carter McJunkin, chief operating officer of Grindr. Mr. McJunkin told the NYT the pairing made sense for Grindr because the gaming company agreed to let the app's founders continue its current structure and keep the existing team. The gay dating app is available across 196 countries and has become one of leading gay dating apps. However, Grindr consistently scores low in user reviews. Many users cite issues with spam bots and persistent bugs — problems that Beijing Kunlun's "digital expertise" might help solve.
More and more people are coming out on Facebook
Timed to coincide with Spirit Day, Facebook's Research and Data Science division has published a report outlining how increasing numbers of US users that identify as lesbian, gay, bi or transexual have come out on the social network this year. "Not only has the total number of Americans who have come out on Facebook risen dramatically, but so has the number coming out each day." Given the sheer heft of 1 Hacker Way's user population, the findings offer a huge data sample to delve into. The Facebook team noted a particular spike in the number of users that came out follow the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage decision in late June. The number of people coming out per day on Facebook is now on track to be three times what it was in 2014. (The researchers defined coming out as: "updating one's profile to express a same-gender attraction or specifying a custom gender.") While many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender users are coming out online, the company faces a continued battle to repair its image with many in the LGBT community following its "real name" policy.
Russia considers blocking Facebook over gay emojis
Vladimir Putin's Russia doesn't like Facebook and it doesn't care for gay people, and the government is now attempting to censor both of these things in one fell swoop. Mikhail Marchenko, a Russian senator in the upper house of parliament, has called for his government to investigate whether Facebook emojis depicting two boys and two girls kissing violates the country's 2013 ban on exposing "homosexual propaganda" to minors, Time reports. Russia's Roskomnadzor (The Federal Service For Supervision of Communication, Information Technology and Mass Media) is investigating Marchenko's concerns and is prepared to "take reactive measures," the site says.
Apple's Tim Cook calls state discrimination laws 'dangerous'
A number of tech executives have decried state laws that promote discrimination against the LGBT community by allowing companies to refuse service on religious grounds, but Apple CEO Tim Cook is taking his opposition to the next level. The executive has written an editorial for the Washington Post that says it's "dangerous" to enact these laws, which include Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act and Arkansas' tentative HB1228. To him, these measures not only "rationalize injustice" against fellow human beings (including himself), but are "bad for business" -- they could stifle employment and corporate growth.
Masquerada's gay characters are defined by humanity, not sexuality
In Masquerada: Songs and Shadows, the city of Ombre resembles a fantastical, medieval Venice: elegant stone towers are lined with heavy wood furniture and the people dress in lush fabrics, wielding swords and spears. But Ombre is not Venice; it's an entirely secular society whose citizens put no stock in the idea of an afterlife, and it's a land where powerful magic stems from a collection of rare masks. The Inspettore, Cicero Gavar, returns from exile to investigate an earth-shattering kidnapping, with the help of spells, weapons and his team -- including Kalden Azrus, a man the city considers a "deviant." "While having the main character be gay and allowing a romance, as BioWare does, is very empowering to a gay player, we hope to serve them in another way -- to show our audience the beauty and humanity of a gay character and how it would translate to real world situations," lead developer Ian Gregory says.
RuPaul on 'gaymers,' Tim Cook's coming out and why we need to lighten up
RuPaul Charles is nothing if not brutally frank. And with a decades-spanning career that's taken him from former New York City club kid to one-time "Supermodel (of the World)," to current host of Logo TV's cult reality show competition RuPaul's Drag Race and all-around impresario of his brand, he's certainly earned the right to tell it like it is. That candor's what his drag persona would refer to as "No T, No Shade," and it's incredibly refreshing. Sure, Ru's name may not be the first that springs to mind when you think tech, but with his recently released freemium mobile game Dragopolis 2.0 hitting iTunes and Google Play, he carved some time out of his busy schedule to talk to me about being a "gaymer," the importance of Apple CEO Tim Cook's coming out and why Netflix is the key to his current media empire.
Steve Jobs memorial dismantled in Russia because of Tim Cook's sexuality
After Steve Jobs died in 2011, a Russian holding company called the West European Financial Union (or ZEFS, in Russian) erected a big, iPhone-shaped memorial statue that told visitors about Jobs' life outside a St. Petersburg college. An innocuous tribute, no? Nothing about the memorial itself was intrinsically troubling, but it's been recently dismantled all the same because of two reasons. First, ZEFS is looking at the act as a way of condemning the company for allegedly spying on users across the globe and "informing US security services about them." The second reason, however, sits on the fence between "mind-boggling" and "patently offensive." In accordance with a controversial law meant to curb gay "propaganda," ZEFS took down the statue "to abide to the Russian federal law protecting children from information promoting denial of traditional family values."
Tim Cook comes out: "I'm proud to be gay"
In a Bloomberg BusinessWeek essay published this morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook affirmed that he is gay, something that had long been spoken of within the tech community (and sometimes accidentally in the mainstream media). In his own words: While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven't publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me. Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It's made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It's been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It's also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you're the CEO of Apple. Cook's decision to publicly discuss his sexuality was made despite his desire to maintain a modicum of privacy and keep the focus on Apple's products. In the final analysis, this was overcome by the realization that his story might serve to help others: I don't consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I've benefited from the sacrifice of others. So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it's worth the trade-off with my own privacy. You can read Cook's entire piece on the Bloomberg BusinessWeek website, where you can also see a video clip of his address in Alabama confronting his ancestral state's record on gay rights. Update: Comments will be closed and deleted if participants cannot find a way to stay on topic and be civil.
Atari's betting its future on gays and gamblers
"If I had a hole in New Mexico, maybe that one [the Project Runway game] would have made it there." Todd Shallbetter, Atari's chief operating officer, is just joking of course. He's referencing the company's infamous 1983 move to bury countless amounts of unsold gaming hardware and E.T. game cartridges under a slab of cement in the desert. Shallbetter doesn't deny his company's rocky legacy. On the contrary, he embraces it, using its failures as a counterpoint for a new version of Atari he's helping to build. To push the company past the €31.7 million (about $42 million) in revenues it earned in the 2011-2012 fiscal year (PDF), Shallbetter is targeting markets that most companies would rather ignore; markets that represent hundreds of billions of dollars. Atari is going after gays and gamblers.
Facebook now lets UK users choose from over 70 gender options
Four months after it did so in the US, Facebook is now letting UK users choose new gender options. After working with two UK organisations, Press For Change and Gendered Intelligence, the social network added over 70 new terms, allowing you to select one of the new custom genders or add your own. Users can also choose a preferred pronoun: male (he/his), female (she/her) or neutral (they/their), which is reflected in birthday notifications and suchlike. As with all profile information, Facebook lets you hide anything you're not comfortable with sharing and says it will not disclose gender selections to advertisers. To update your profile, click the 'About' tab, then hit "Edit" next to the "Gender" option in the "Contact and Basic Information" section.
Facebook now lets you specify a custom gender in your profile
Many in the queer community identify themselves through genders that don't fit into binary male and female definitions, but social networks typically don't allow for that kind of nuance. Thankfully, Facebook is more accommodating as of today. You can now specify a custom gender as well as a preferred pronoun. If you're not always comfortable with sharing that gender, you can limit who sees it. Facebook isn't accounting for every aspect of gender -- you still have to describe family relationships in binary terms, for instance -- but this is an important first step.
Queer-friendly cyberpunk adventure game Read Only Memories reaches funding goal in final 48 hours
Read Only Memories, a cyberpunk adventure game from the founders of the GaymerX convention, has successfully hacked its way into people's hearts as well as their wallets. The game reached its Kickstarter goal of $62,064 on December 11, and closed funding yesterday with a total of $64,378. The actual final funding tally is closer to $126,000 though, as Ouya will match the initial $62,064 goal with their own money in exchange for a period of exclusivity on the system, thanks to Read Only Memories participating in the Free the Games Fund. Read Only Memories is advertised as featuring "queer-friendly characters," according to the game's Kickstarter page, and also includes non-gender-binary options for players. In one released screenshot, a robot assistant - who also happens to be the mascot for GaymerX - asks which pronoun the player would like to be referred to with, and there's more than just "he" and "she" to choose from. The game is expected to ship for PC, Mac and Ouya in fall of next year, with Android and iOS versions planned to release six months thereafter. In the meantime, it's also up for voting on Steam Greenlight.
Do you con?
This past weekend I made a 5-hour drive to San Francisco for the inaugural run of GaymerX. If you're not familiar, the gay gaming convention made pretty big news in tech circles when it successfully Kickstarted itself into existence this year. And it's still making news after the fact thanks to the unbelievably rad live rendition of GLaDOS's Still Alive making the rounds on the Interwebs (above). I met up with a lot of awesome people there and helped moderate a panel on podcasting with the dudes from Horde House, WoW Insider regulars Spike and Slagkick of Game Buoy, and some other great folks from Qoopa Klub and Gayme Bar. I ran into nerd heartthrob Orkchop and his wife, played a killer game of Cards Against Humanity, and made a lot of gaming friends from around the country that I'll hang out with again. This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: "Huge success." It's hard to overstate my satisfaction. So, the question of the day is this: Do you guys love going to conventions as much as I do? Have you gone to any memorable ones lately? And are there any you're really looking forward to (*cough, cough* BlizzCon)?
