A Russian has sued Apple claiming an iPhone app turned him gay. The man named D. Razumilov, accuses the American tech giant of encouraging him to experiment with same-sex relations.
The claim stems from an alleged incident involving “GayCoin” crypto-currency.
Mr Razumilov claims he downloaded an Apple app for cryptocurrency payments to his iPhone, but instead received 69 GayCoins from an unknown sender.
Bitcoin and Gaycoin are both a form of the virtual money system known as cryptocurrency.
He said the payment was accompanied by a note in broken English, which read words to the effect of: “Don’t judge until you try”.
Mr Razumilov interpreted the message as suggesting he should not condemn homosexuality without first giving it a go.
“I thought, indeed, how can I judge something without trying it? And I decided to try same-sex relationships,” he wrote in his complaint to Presnensky district court in Moscow.
Homosexuality was decriminalised in Russia in 1993, but anti-gay prejudice is still widespread and it is still essentially illegal to openly discuss homosexuality in the country.
The plaintiff claims that the note, and therefore Apple, “manupulatively pushed” him “towards homosexuality”.
His lawyer Sapizhat Gusnieva says the company “has a responsibility for their programmes” despite the alleged exchange taking place on a third-party app.
“Now I have a boyfriend and I do not know how to explain this to my parents,” Mr Razumilov wrote in his complaint.
“My life has been changed for the worse and will never be normal again.”
Insisting he has suffered “moral and mental” harm, Mr Razumilov is seeking one million rubles (£12,300) in damages, according to a copy of the complaint seen by the news agency, AFP.
The court will hear the complaint on October 17, according to information on its website.
Leave a Reply