Telegram is back on the App Store after brief CSAM removal: X stays put

Telegram briefly disappeared from Apple’s App Store worldwide in August 2026. Apple pulled it after finding CSAM-related violations, then put it back roughly an hour later once Telegram said it had banned the single offending user and removed the content.

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That quick reversal still drew outsized attention. Telegram says it has more than 1 billion users, and in some countries it plays a real political role, so even a short removal doesn’t pass quietly. The app had already been under pressure before this: Indonesia in 2017, Germany in 2022, a French inquiry in 2024 involving Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, plus an earlier Apple removal in 2018. Telegram also says it has stepped up moderation and, in 2026 alone, removed 337,900 groups and channels linked to CSAM.

Apple’s decision also put the spotlight back on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. X stayed in the App Store during the 2026 Grok deepfake controversy even after private warnings, a rejected xAI update, a later approved revision, partial safeguards, reported workarounds, and investigations in California and Canada.

If you pay attention to how Apple handles big platforms, this one is worth watching. Critics keep arguing over whether Apple is actually enforcing its June 2026 repeat-violator rules the same way across the board, and that fight now runs from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney to 28 advocacy groups to several US senators. Legal scholar Anupam Chander has also pointed to the larger political blowback Apple could face in the US if it tried the same move with X.

Telegram is back on the App Store now, so you can download it again.