Telegram CEO revealed the reason the application was removed from the App Store
(Dan Tri) - On the morning of August 4 (Vietnam time), Telegram was removed from the App Store globally by Apple. The above problem was fixed by Telegram after a few hours.
In the latest post on social network Twitter, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov shared some information about the above incident, and revealed the real reason why Apple removed the Telegram application from the App Store.
Pavel Durov is a billionaire and founder of Telegram (Photo: Durov/Instagram).
"Last night, Apple temporarily removed Telegram from the App Store because a user posted illegal pornography in a public chat.
Telegram was restored within a few hours. However, I want to explain what happened to warn other application developers and help protect online communities from similar attacks," Pavel Durov wrote.
The CEO said the attacker used a trick to avoid censorship tools. Telegram had to use various tools to remove illegal content from public groups.
Accordingly, this person used the feature to modify an old message in the chat and inserted illegal content edited with AI. As a result, this content was hidden from group members, making it impossible for them to see or report it.
Pavel Durov believes that this is a form of extortion by taking advantage of the platforms' mechanism for handling violation reports (takedown extortionist). Attackers intentionally install illegal content into groups and then report it to Apple to pressure administrators to pay.
These actors use automated accounts to spread illegal content into public groups and then report directly to Apple. At that time, owners who refuse to pay may be removed from the community due to policy violations.
Telegram CEO warns that attackers are increasingly using more sophisticated tricks (Photo: Tecnoblog).
The Telegram boss also warned that attackers' tactics are becoming increasingly sophisticated, endangering communities on all social networking platforms.
"The blackmailers found a way to manipulate Apple into overreacting. Apple removed Telegram from the App Store before contacting us. This creates a potential systemic risk for any mobile app that contains user-generated content.
If an app used by more than a billion people can be removed from the App Store without warning, any app can be like that," Pavel Durov shared.
To date, Apple has not provided any response about the incident.