Apple removed Telegram from App Store

TELEGRAM

Telegram was banned from the App Store while handling the situation.

 For distribution of child pornography.

Last week, Apple withdrew mysteriously the secure messaging app Telegram and its more efficient counterpart, Telegram X, from the app store. for "inappropriate content", a move that many users found curious without any concrete explanation.

Now, thanks to confirmation of the authenticity of an email exchange between a Telegram user and Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller, courtesy of 9to5Mac In the case of Telegram, we know that the "inappropriate content" was actually the distribution of child pornography through Telegram's mobile applications.

"The Telegram apps were removed from the App Store because the App Store team was alerted to illegal content, specifically child pornography, in the apps," Schiller wrote to the user.

"After verifying the existence of the illegal content, the team removed the apps from the store, alerted the developer and notified the appropriate authorities, including NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)."

The distribution of child pornography is one of the most serious offenses on the web, and both users and the platforms involved in the act are often responsible in various capacities for preventing such images and videos from being shared and allowed to spread in any way.

On the Internet. Nearly every social network and high-tech platform on the planet uses a wide variety of digital protections to prevent child pornography from being posted and detect it immediately after distribution.

This is done through the use of databases compiled by federal law enforcement and hash technology to detect and track files as they move across networks.

Telegram, however, seems to have been less than prepared in this case, prompting Apple to remove the entire app while the messaging company figured out how to remedy the situation.

"Apple alerted us that inappropriate content was available to our users and both apps were removed from the App Store," Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said in a statement last week.

"Once we have protections in place, we expect the apps to return to the App Store." It took about a day for Telegram and Telegram X to return to the App Store.

The company has had similar problems in the past with respect to terrorism, and has been heavily criticized by governments for failing to address how criminals use its end-to-end encrypted chat features.

After Indonesia threatened to ban the app in July last year for ISIS propaganda. Telegram created a special team to moderate content in the country.

Here is Schiller's full email, at through 9to5Mac :

The Telegram apps were removed from the app store because the app store team was alerted to illegal content, specifically child pornography, in the apps. After verifying the existence of the illegal content, the team removed the apps from the store, alerted the developer and notified the appropriate authorities, including NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children).The App Store team worked with the developer to have them remove this illegal content from the apps and ban the users who posted this horrible content. Only after it was verified that the developer had taken these steps and put in place further controls to prevent this illegal activity from happening again were these apps restored to the App Store.We will never allow apps to distribute illegal content on the App Store and will take swift action whenever we discover such activity. Above all, we have zero tolerance for any activity that puts children at risk: child pornography is at the top of the list of what should never happen. It is evil, illegal and immoral.I hope you appreciate the importance of our actions to not distribute apps in the App Store while they contain illegal content and to take swift action against any and all apps engaging in content that puts children at risk.