The incident follows a similar suspension in 2018, when Apple temporarily pulled Telegram.<\/p>\n
Published On 4 Aug 20264 Aug 2026<\/p>\n
Messaging app Telegram has said it was briefly removed from Apple\u2019s App Store globally after the iPhone maker reported one user had shared \u201cchild sexual abuse material\u201d.<\/p>\n
The incident, which Telegram reported on Tuesday, follows a similar suspension in 2018, when Apple temporarily pulled Telegram for material the app\u2019s founder Pavel Durov called \u201cinappropriate content\u201d at the time, only to be restored after Telegram beefed up safeguards.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
An Apple spokesperson confirmed the recent brief removal, saying its review found content that violated guidelines prohibiting child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe app was subsequently restored after the developer promptly removed the content and banned the user who posted it,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n
The app was removed and restored on the same day, after Telegram took action.<\/p>\n
Telegram, which has more than a billion monthly active users, says it has a zero-tolerance policy for material on child sexual abuse, blocking nearly 338,000 groups and channels over such items this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure this stance will be applied equally to all other apps in the store, in the future, right? Apple,\u201d Telegram posted on X in response to a user who shared the Apple statement.<\/p>\n
Guideline violations<\/p>\n
Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Fortnite-maker Epic Games, which has been embroiled in legal challenges with Apple for years, questioned the US tech giant\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cApple has stated they removed the app from availability to a billion users because a Telegram user posted something horrible and illegal,\u201d Sweeney wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did not elaborate on how, if that is the standard for app removal, any communications app could operate at scale, including iMessage.\u201d<\/p>\n
An Apple spokesperson did not respond to a request for further comment on the guideline violation.<\/p>\n
Telegram has drawn regulatory scrutiny for its handling of child sexual abuse material and other illegal content as recently as April, when Britain\u2019s Ofcom, the regulator for broadcasting, telecommunications and postal services, launched an investigation into evidence suggesting the sharing of child sex abuse material.<\/p>\n
Telegram has \u201ccategorically\u201d denied the communications regulator\u2019s accusations, adding that since 2018 it had \u201cvirtually eliminated\u201d the public spread of child sexual abuse material through detection algorithms.<\/p>\n
Telegram was also fined in February by Australia\u2019s online safety regulator for delaying answers to queries on measures to rein in material on child abuse and violent extremist behaviour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The incident follows a similar suspension in 2018, when Apple temporarily pulled Telegram. Published On 4 Aug 20264…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2411,194994,1294,59,50,224,86,56,54,158,55,3544],"class_list":["post-727767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-business-and-economy","tag-child-rights","tag-economy","tag-gb","tag-news","tag-social-media","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}