Apple Briefly Removes Telegram from App Store Over Child Abuse Material

Apple said it briefly removed the popular messenger Telegram from the App Store over child sexual abuse material on the platform. Telegram, which claims more than 1 billion monthly active users, has long faced accusations in several countries of lax content moderation and failing to crack down on illegal activity. Users began reporting problems downloading the app on Tuesday shortly after 01:00 GMT. The app returned about an hour later. “Telegram has been restored on the App Store and should soon be available again for all users,” the company said without elaborating. Telegram’s official account on X wrote: “Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.” Hours later, Apple said in a statement to 9to5Mac that Telegram was removed after a review found content that violated the company’s “strict guidelines prohibiting child sexual abuse material.” “The app was subsequently restored after the developer promptly removed the content and banned the user who posted it,” Apple said. Last week, Australia’s telecommunications regulator initiated civil proceedings against Telegram for allegedly failing to detect and remove “pro-terror material” from the platform, including videos of terrorist executions and mass shootings. Last month, Russia placed Telegram’s Russian-born founder Pavel Durov on a wanted list, designating him as a person involved in terrorism and extremism. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) alleges that Durov had failed to take down a dating chatbot used by Ukraine to recruit young Russians to commit arson and other forms of sabotage. Durov, who has lived outside Russia since 2014, said he was put on the list “for refusing its demands for mass surveillance and censorship on Telegram.” Russia first blocked Telegram in 2018 but lifted the restrictions two years later, citing the company’s cooperation with authorities’ efforts to combat terrorism. The country banned the service again in February 2026, citing violations of the law. Durov was briefly detained at an airport outside Paris in 2024 after French authorities accused him of allowing organized crime to proliferate on Telegram. He later claimed that France’s intelligence services had tried to pressure him into enacting political censorship, including a crackdown on conservative voices during Romania’s contentious 2025 presidential elections. The country has denied his claims. The messenger was briefly blocked in Brazil in March 2022 and April 2023, after authorities accused the platform of failing to curb the spread of misinformation and neo-Nazi chat groups.