Apple briefly removes Telegram from App Store after child sexual abuse content violation

Telegram is back on the App Store after Apple briefly removed it on Monday night over concerns about child sexual abuse material (CSAM). In a statement to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple says a review found that Telegram "violates our strict guidelines prohibiting child sexual abuse material," adding that it restored the app "after the developer […]

Apple briefly removed Telegram from the App Store on Monday night after a review found content that violated its guidelines against child sexual abuse material (CSAM), but restored the app a short while later, according to Reuters. Reports of the removal began circulating around 9:30 p.m. ET on Monday, with searches for Telegram on the ‌App Store‌ returning nothing and the app's direct listing showing a "page can't be found" error. Existing users were not affected and could keep using the app throughout, and Telegram remained available on the Mac App Store. The app returned to the ‌App Store‌ roughly 40 minutes later, around 10:10 p.m. ET. Apple confirmed the reason for the takedown in a statement: We briefly removed Telegram from the App Store after our review found content that violates our 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. Telegram said the action stemmed from a single account. "Apple reported one user sharing CSAM, who was immediately banned," the company said, adding that it has removed more than 337,900 groups and channels related to CSAM in 2026, on top of 29,640 removals in 2025 following reports from groups including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated 🍎— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) August 4, 2026 Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, a longtime critic of ‌App Store‌ policy amid his own antitrust fight with Apple, argued on X that the takedown showed the need for more competition in app distribution. "Apple's ‌App Store‌ desperately needs competition worldwide," Sweeney wrote. "Apple capriciously removes a vital communication and privacy tool from availability to a billion users, and sadly this is business as usual." He went on to question the consistency of the standard Apple applied, noting the company "did not elaborate on how, if that is the standard for app removal, any communications app could operate at scale, including iMessage." Monday's action echoes a February 2018 removal, when Apple pulled both Telegram and its Telegram X client over what founder Pavel Durov described at the time as "inappropriate content," restoring the apps only after Telegram added extra safeguards.Tags: App Store, TelegramThis article, "Telegram Briefly Removed From App Store" first appeared on MacRumors.comDiscuss this article in our forums

Telegram was briefly removed from Apple’s App Store globally after the iPhone maker reported one user had shared “child sexual abuse material,” the messaging app said on Tuesday.

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.

Apple restored Telegram after the messaging platform removed content that violated its child safety policies and banned the user who posted it.

The messenger’s founder, Pavel Durov, has faced accusations in several countries of failing to curb criminal activity on the platform

The Telegram app was briefly removed after Apple's review found content that violated its guidelines prohibiting child sexual abuse material.

Telegram has been mired in other recent controversies including allegations by Russia of aiding terrorism and criticism by Australia over its handling of violent content.

Apple said it restored the app ​after “the developer promptly ‌removed the content and banned the user who ‌posted it”

Apple briefly removed Telegram from the App Store after its review process detected content that violated the company's guidelines against child sexual abuse material, before restoring the app once Telegram took the content down. The messaging platform, which counts close to a billion users globally, was unavailable to new and returning downloaders on iOS and iPadOS for several hours, even as existing installations continued to function normally throughout the disruption.What did Apple say?Confirming the takedown, Apple told multiple news outlets in a statement, it briefly removed Telegram from the App Store after finding content that violated its guidelines prohibiting child sexual abuse material. The company added that the app was restored after the developer promptly removed the offending content and banned the user responsible for posting it. Apple's confirmation came roughly twenty minutes after the app's listing had already returned to the App Store, following hours during which neither company had publicly explained the sudden disappearance.Apple: We briefly removed Telegram from the App Store after our review found content that violates our 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.— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) August 4, 2026 Why did Apple remove Telegram from the App Store?Users across multiple regions started noticing that searches for Telegram on the App Store were no longer returning results, sparking speculation about the cause of the delisting. Throughout the removal, the app remained listed and functional on the Mac App Store, and existing installations on iPhones and iPads continued to allow messaging, calls and access to channels and groups. Users who had deleted the app during the window, however, would have been unable to reinstall it until Apple restored the listing.Telegram's responseTelegram's official account addressed the episode with a lighter touch once access was restored, posting on X that "reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated." The company did not immediately offer a detailed public explanation of the specific content that had triggered the removal, though Apple's statement made clear that the offending material and the account responsible had both been dealt with before the listing returned.reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated — Telegram Messenger (@telegram) August 4, 2026 The latest episode was not the first time Telegram has run into this exact problem with Apple. In February 2018, Apple temporarily pulled both Telegram and its experimental Telegram X app from the App Store after discovering that child sexual abuse material was circulating through public channels on the platform. At the time, Apple executive Phil Schiller confirmed to a Telegram user by email that the app had been used to distribute such material, and that the App Store team alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children before restoring the apps once Telegram had introduced safeguards. Telegram has separately, and more recently, partnered with the UK based Internet Watch Foundation to allow automated scanning of its platform for known abuse imagery, a step aimed at addressing longstanding criticism from child safety groups over the platform's historically hands-off approach to moderation.

Apple Inc. briefly removed the Telegram messaging app from its App Store after finding content on the platform that violated a ban on child sexual abuse material.