Telegram's takedown caused by planted porn & weaponized App Store policies
The brief removal and restoration of Telegram from the App Store was a targeted attack by a "takedown extortionist," and it's something the company's CEO says can be weaponized against other apps, too. Telegram On Monday evening, Telegram was removed from the App Store for a number of hours, following a report that CSAM material was posted to it. The following day, the fallout of the event…
Apple recently removed the Telegram messaging app from its iPhone App Store for a short period due to the spread of child pornography, only to re-approve it after Telegram removed the content and banned the perpetrator user. Over the years, Telegram has been the subject of various controversies, with the platform's founder Pawel Durow being arrested in France in 2024 on charges of insufficient measures against criminal misuse of the service.
Australian authorities initiated a legal process against Telegram for alleged failure to detect and remove extremist content. Telegram also plays a significant role in the Ukraine conflict, with both sides publishing information about the progress of the Russian aggression on the platform. In Russia, Durow was added to a terrorist list last week due to claims that Telegram was being used by Ukrainian intelligence services to track Russians.
Although Telegram is blocked in Russia, users can still access it via encrypted VPN connections that conceal their location.
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- Telegram CEO says extortionist planted illegal content that triggered App Store removal 9to5mac.com
