The iPhone giant has apparently bowed to pressure from the Russian government over its insistence that the company removes Telegram from the App Store, reports TechCrunch. While the app is still available on the App Store, Apple has ceased proving updates and fixes for the Telegram app for all users worldwide. As Telegram’s founder explained in a blog post:
Unfortunately, some Telegram features, such as stickers, don’t work correctly under iOS 11.4 that was just released–even though we fixed this issue weeks ago. Apple has been preventing Telegram from updating its iOS apps globally ever since the Russian authorities ordered Apple to remove Telegram from the App Store. Russia banned Telegram on its territory in April because we refused to provide decryption keys for all our users’ communications to Russia’s security agencies. We believe we did the only possible thing, preserving the right of our users to privacy in a troubled country.
Unfortunately, Apple didn’t side with us. While Russia makes up only 7% of Telegram’s userbase, Apple is restricting updates for all Telegram users around the world since mid-April. As a result, we’ve also been unable to fully comply with GDPR for our EU-users by the deadline of May 25, 2018. We are continuing our efforts to resolve the situation and will keep you updated.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor has insisted Apple stop distributing the app in the country as Telegram refuses to give the Russian government access to encrypted messages sent on the platform.
Apple stopped approving Telegram for iOS updates globally 1,5 months ago after Russia ordered a block on Telegram. More here – https://t.co/yarcIrV2Bh
— Pavel Durov (@durov) May 31, 2018
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