Telegram Briefly Pulled from Apple App Store

Telegram was briefly removed from Apple’s App Store worldwide on Tuesday after a user shared child sexual abuse material on the messaging platform.

Apple said it had removed the app after finding content that violated its guidelines. Telegram was reinstated later the same day after removing the material and banning the user who posted it.

Telegram said it had a zero-tolerance policy toward such content and had blocked nearly 338,000 groups and channels over child sexual abuse material since the beginning of the year. Responding to Apple’s decision, the company called for the same standard to be applied to other apps.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney also criticized the move, arguing that if the same principle were applied consistently, no major communications platform, including iMessage, could operate at scale.

Telegram is also facing regulatory pressure elsewhere. Britain’s Ofcom is investigating its handling of child sexual abuse material, Australia fined the company in February over delayed responses about illegal content and Russian authorities charged its founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, with aiding terrorism on 29 July.

(Reuters, mja)