SPIEGEL.DE - Aug 10 - In Turkey, digital LGBTQ + offers are repeatedly blocked. Now Hornet has disappeared from the App Store. About a year ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused LGBTQ + activists of undermining "our national and spiritual values" and "poisoning" young people. The verbal attack was not an isolated incident. Government politicians in Turkey repeatedly attract attention with homophobic and transphobic statements. Apple has removed Hornet from the Turkish app store. The reason for this is a Turkish court ruling from last year. Hornet was blocked on August 6, 2020, citing Law 5651. Originally, the law was supposed to protect the Turkish public from cybercrime. However, it grants the government extensive monitoring and blocking rights on the Internet. Hornet joins a number of similar cases. The gabile.com platform was also blocked last year. The site was created in Turkey in 1999 and is the oldest dating and exchange platform for the LGBTQ + community in the country. Grindr has also been unavailable in Turkey since 2013.