Pavel Durov says an extortionist planted "illegal porn in a public chat" to get the app pulled from the App Store and manipulated Apple into "overreacting" (Emma Roth/The Verge)
Pavel Durov claims attackers post illegal content and manipulate reports to ‘trigger the removal of legitimate communities.’
Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, has accused Apple of overreacting after the tech giant temporarily removed his messaging platform from the App Store. The removal came after "extortionists" managed to manipulate Apple into taking action, according to Durov. Apple had removed Telegram from the App Store due to content involving sexual abuse, which violated the company's guidelines.
Durov stated that Apple failed to consider that the individual who posted the content was an "extortionist" who used automated accounts to plant illegal content and then reported it to Apple in an attempt to trigger its removal. Apple later restored the app to the App Store after Telegram removed the content and banned the user responsible.
Despite the controversy, Apple assured users that those who had already downloaded the app could continue using it without any issues. However, Telegram has faced its share of controversy in the past. In August, Durov was arrested in France for alleged failures to flag criminal activity on the platform, though he was eventually released.
The app, which is highly popular with over 950 million users, has been restricted in Russia and temporarily blocked in Iraq due to national security concerns.
Written by urgent.news from The National UAE's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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