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Google Pulls Conversion-Therapy App After Human Rights Campaign Ding

Photo: TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier this week, the Human Rights Campaign suspended Google from its Corporate Equality Index — a sort of rating system the LGBTQ-rights group uses to denote accepting and safe workplaces — because it refused to pull a conversion-therapy app from the Google Play store. The app was from Living Hope Ministries, an organization that supports so-called conversion “therapy,” despite such practices having been disavowed by the scientific community. A day later, Google pulled the app, Axios reports.

“Such practices have been rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organization for decades. Minors are especially vulnerable, and conversion therapy can lead to depression, anxiety, drug use, homelessness, and suicide,” the HRC said in announcing its suspension of Google. “Pending remedial steps by the company to address this app that can cause harm to the LGBTQ community the CEI rating is suspended.” Last year, Google was given a perfect Corporate Equality Index score of 100.

Google’s peers, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, all willingly pulled the app at the HRC’s behest. Google, for unknown reasons, decided this was the hill to die on … for approximately 24 hours. (Truth Wins Out had also been lobbying Google for months to take the app down, including a petition with 140,000 signatures.) In recent months, Google has faced flak from its employees for its treatment of marginalized groups, including women and people of color. Thousands of employees walked out in November in protest of millions of dollars in exit-package payouts to sexual harassers.

Google Pulls Conversion-Therapy App After HRC Ding