Apple briefly blocked Telegram messenger from its App Store for users in several countries after it was found to contain child sexual abuse material.
Apple briefly blocked Telegram messenger from its App Store for users in several countries after it was found to contain child sexual abuse material.
Western information resources report details of the incident, citing official statements from representatives of both technology companies.
It is noted that the program was temporarily unavailable for download in the United States, India, Australia, and Singapore. The blocking and restoration of the application occurred on the same day.
“We briefly removed Telegram from the App Store after our review found content that violated our strict policies prohibiting child sexual abuse material. The app was later reinstated after the developer promptly removed the content and blocked the user who posted it,” an Apple spokesperson explained.
Telegram confirmed that it immediately banned the offender after receiving the report. The company, which has more than a billion monthly active users, emphasizes a zero-tolerance policy for such material. According to its data, almost 338,000 groups and channels with prohibited content were blocked this year alone.
At the same time, the official account of the messenger on the X network left an ironic comment to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, who reported on the removal of Telegram from the App Store: "We are sure that this position will be applied equally to all other applications in the store in the future, right, Apple?"
Apple's decision was criticized by Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company has been suing the iPhone maker for years. He expressed his incomprehension of how any communication app, including the company's iMessage, can operate on such a scale if the standard for removing an entire platform is the publication of illegal content by a single user.
Apple's App Store desperately needs competition worldwide. Apple capriciously removes a vital communication and privacy tool from availability to a billion users, and unfortunately this is business as usual. https://t.co/tX58rIjFAh
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 4, 2026
As a reminder, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation has filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court demanding that the Telegram messenger be recognized as an extremist organization and its activities be completely banned in Russia. Earlier, the FSB put the platform's founder, Pavel Durov, on the international wanted list on charges of aiding terrorism.
