LGBT groups kiss Douban goodbye

• Source: Global Times
• [06:18 May 18 2011]
• Comments

By Yang Jie

About 10 Beijing-based organizations marked Tuesday's International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO) with a boycott against the popular social networking site douban.com. The organizations say Douban has shown an increasingly unfriendly attitude towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups.

The decision was made after Douban's behavior repeatedly contradicted its claimed purpose as a platform advocating sharing, openness and mutual aid, said Guo Ziyang from the Beijing Tongxing Working Group, which is among the boycott participants.

Activities initiated by related organizations have been continuously rejected and pictures deleted from the website since about two years ago, Guo told the Global Times.

"Even academic lectures couldn't get approval," Guo said.

According to a screenshot of an e-mail sent by Douban to Smile4Gay, a campaign to collect photos of smiling heterosexuals, the application to post the campaign on the site was turned down because "the activity might bring potential risks to the operations of the website."

"Our applications to set up an account or initiate a snapshot event have never succeeded, and we are unaware of the reasons," Luo Can, who is responsible for the Smile4Gay campaign, told the Global Times Tuesday.

Pictures of a bike tour Sunday to celebrate IDAHO were also deleted from Douban, according to Guo.

A special website was established Monday as an alternative, involving nine organizations including LGBT magazines, websites and NGOs.

A statement published on the website at anti-douban.com claimed they would never participate in Douban-initiated activities or share information or pictures on the site starting May 17, 2011.

Screenshots of Douban's rejection or removal e-mails were also posted as evidence.