Why was Telegram suddenly taken down from Apple’s App Store, then restored?

This is far from the first time Telegram has faced scrutiny over its considerably lax approach to content moderation. Beyond CSAM, the platform has previously been accused of enabling scams, online piracy, terrorism, crime, and disinformation.

It comes months after the Centre issued an order to block Telegram in India for five days at the request of the National Testing Agency (NTA), responsible for conducting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), after the country’s key undergraduate medical entrance exam was cancelled earlier this year due to widespread paper leak allegations and irregularities.

The platform is believed to have been used to circulate leaked questions and communicate with students, middlemen and others linked to the network. However, Telegram is also widely used by protesters and news organisations evading authoritarian control and is generally known for its resistance to government scrutiny.

In its response to Apple’s temporary takedown action, Telegram said in a post on X, “I’m sure this stance will be applied equally to all other apps in the store, in the future, ​right?” “Apple was wrong to disrupt the legitimate communication of a billion people over the actions of a single user,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Verge.

What triggered Telegram’s temporary removal?

In a post on X, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov blamed an extortionist for allegedly planting CSAM in a public chat to get the app temporarily removed from the App Store on Monday night. Durov also claimed that Apple took down the app from the App Store before contacting Telegram.

“This creates a potential systemic risk for every mobile app that hosts user-generated content. If an app used by more than a billion people can be removed from the App Store without prior warning, any app can be,” Durov said.

“Extortionists have found a way to manipulate Apple into overreacting,” he added. According to Durov, ‘extortionists’ use automated accounts or bots on Telegram to plant illegal content in public groups and then report it directly to Apple. It is an attempt to trigger the removal of legitimate communities whose owners refused to pay them, Durov alleged.

Referring to the incident that led to Monday’s removal, Durov alleged that the extortionist inserted AI-modified illegal content by editing an old message in an active Telegram group chat, thus preventing members of the group from seeing or reporting it.

Telegram’s message editing feature has been similarly misused in the past as well. In its direction blocking Telegram in India, the NTA had also requested the app to disable its message-editing feature in India till June 30. According to the testing agency, the feature was used in regards to multiple recent examinations, to fabricate after-the-event ‘paper leak’ artefacts.

Defending its content moderation policies, Telegram said it has removed more than 3,37,900 groups and channels related to CSAM in 2026. The app’s safety overview page also says that it “blocks tens of thousands of groups and channels daily and removes millions of pieces of content” that violate its policies.

What other regulatory hurdles has Telegram faced?

Telegram’s moderation policies have increasingly come under fire in recent years. In 2018, Apple removed Telegram from the App Store due to the presence of CSAM.

Brazil’s Supreme Court banned Telegram nationwide in 2022 ahead of a presidential election. It said that the app had failed to comply with orders to remove accounts tied to a supporter of former President Jair Bolsonaro who was being investigated for spreading disinformation and threatening Supreme Court judges.

In 2023, Norway’s justice minister said in an official notice that state officials should not have Telegram or TikTok on their work devices because the government saw the apps as threats to national security.

French authorities arrested Telegram CEO Durov in 2024 and charged him with enabling illegal transactions and complicity in the distribution of CSAM.  Months later, the Russian-born founder was allowed to leave France temporarily in a loosening of his obligations under a probe into criminal activities on the messaging app. Russia also recently issued an arrest warrant for Durov, claiming that Telegram facilitates terrorism.