For roughly an hour this week, Telegram vanished from Apple's App Store. Even during that brief blip, it was a stunning absence for such a major app: a communication channel for more than 1 billion users around the world, widely used as a secure platform for people living under censorship. Apple later revealed that it had removed the app due to the presence of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and restored it once that content was removed.
But the decision once again stirred questions and confusion about Apple's content moderation policies and how it treats different companies. One company in particular sprang to many people's minds: X, the Elon Musk-owned platform that stayed on the App Store even as sexualized Grok-generated images of children flooded the platform. What led to Telegram's removal but X's ability to stay online?
The answer may be more political than technical
“When you are enforcing your content moderation policy against an entire platform, you are subjecting yourself to the blowback that will happen,” said Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown and an affiliate of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Both Telegram and X have had their fair share of controversies. Telegram, which is headquartered in Dubai, earned a reputation for having a laid-back approach to content moderation.
In recent years, local governments have pressured Telegram to delete content and impose new restrictions. In 2017, for example, Telegram began removing “terrorist-related content” after receiving threats from Indonesia, while Germany considered banning Telegram in 2022 over claims it facilitated hate speech. Things came to a head in 2024 when French authorities arrested Pavel Durov, the Russian-born CEO and founder of Telegram, accusing him of “complicity” in illegal actions related to illegal transactions and CSAM. As of last year, France's inquiry into Durov remains open. Last month, Russia charged Durov with facilitating terrorism, alleging that Durov allows Ukrainian spies to use Telegram to plan attacks on the country. Durov responded with a photo of himself flipping off the camera.
Telegram has since taken a harder look at its content moderation policies, changing its stance on private message moderation, discontinuing some “misused” features—including one that allowed users to find and message others nearby—and complying with court orders to provide information on users suspected of criminal activity. The messaging app has also ramped up its detection of illegal material.
That’s all to say that, while large and important, Telegram is also seen as a nuisance politically and a problematic platform in its own right. “X has a far stronger base of political support in the United States than Telegram does,” Chander said. That means “removing X would have likely caused a firestorm of political response against Apple” to a degree it wouldn’t receive for taking down Telegram. It was not a first for Apple; the company previously removed Telegram due to a CSAM violation in 2018, for a similarly brief period.
The X factor: Grok deepfakes and no removal
One instance of illegal content can be enough to get an app removed from app stores, but Apple appears to have taken a very different approach when it came to X’s latest controversy. Late last year, X rolled out an update giving users the ability to edit images on the platform using X’s Grok AI chatbot. Soon after, AI-generated deepfakes that undressed adults and children began spreading across the platform.
The response to the incident was loud and reverberated across the globe. The UK’s former prime minister condemned X and advanced a deepfake law, while the European Union opened an investigation into the platform. Advocacy groups also called for the removal of X from Apple and Google’s app stores, but that never happened. It sparked legal battles as well, with Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, suing X for allowing Grok to generate nonconsensual, sexualized images of her. A group of teens also sued xAI—the Musk-owned company in charge of Grok—over accusations that its chatbot generated sexualized images of themselves as minors.
Despite all of the pressure on Apple, the company kept X in its store. Instead, it began communicating with X behind the scenes to request changes. Apple reached out to the teams behind the X and Grok apps “after it received complaints and saw news coverage of the scandal,” according to a letter Apple wrote to US senators seen by NBC News. Apple asked the developers to “create a plan to improve content moderation,” NBC News reported. While Apple later found that X “substantially resolved its violations,” Apple reportedly told Grok’s team that they needed to make additional changes “or the app could be removed from the App Store.”
Musk issued a statement in January, saying: “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.” xAI later sued a man for allegedly using Grok to generate and distribute CSAM. During this period, Apple removed neither X nor Grok and never has, even though the AI chatbot within both apps generated undressed images of minors.
A history of political friction
Chander noted that removing X would have to be a decision made at the very top: “a decision that you’re willing to suffer the political consequences, including a very irate Elon Musk.” Apple is certainly aware of what can happen. In 2022, shortly after he bought Twitter, Musk began publicly complaining that Apple was trying to restrict the app; the dispute ended with Tim Cook giving Musk a tour of Apple’s campus and resolving the apparent “misunderstanding.”
Meanwhile, Durov claims that Apple removed Telegram before ever contacting the company. Apple declined to comment on the moderation differences between the two apps. Apple closely guards the process behind its moderation decisions, so it’s hard to tell exactly how the company works with developers behind closed doors. But Apple’s recent actions suggest the rules have some flexibility—at least when the world’s first trillionaire is involved.
The comparison between Telegram and X also highlights broader questions about the power of app store gatekeepers. Apple and Google control the primary distribution channels for mobile software on their platforms, and their decisions can make or break a service. While both companies have published guidelines and claim to enforce them consistently, the real-world application often seems uneven. This is especially evident when politically connected figures like Musk are involved.
Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, has become a polarizing figure himself. Born in Russia, he left the country in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition groups on VKontakte, the social network he founded. Since then, Telegram has operated with a decentralized structure, with a small engineering team and a stance that has often favored privacy over proactive moderation. That stance has made it a lifeline for activists and dissidents, but also a haven for illicit activity.
Apple’s App Store guidelines explicitly prohibit apps that contain or promote illegal content, including CSAM. The guidelines also state that apps should implement robust moderation mechanisms to prevent such content from being distributed. In Telegram’s case, the company has argued that it complies with requests to remove illegal content and has improved its proactive measures. However, critics argue that Telegram’s encrypted messaging features make it notoriously difficult to detect CSAM, especially in private chats, which are protected by end-to-end encryption by default.
X, on the other hand, has always been a public platform where content is generally visible and searchable. That visibility makes it easier for authorities to identify and remove illegal material, though Grok’s ability to generate deepfakes within the platform created a new kind of challenge. AI-generated content can spread much faster than human-uploaded material, and in the case of X, the ability to create such content was literally built into the app.
The discrepancy in Apple’s responses has not gone unnoticed by lawmakers. Several US senators have asked Apple to explain its decisions regarding X and Grok, and some have called for greater transparency in app store moderation practices. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act also imposes new obligations on app store gatekeepers, including non-discrimination requirements that could affect how Apple enforces its guidelines.
As of now, Apple has not publicly addressed why it treated Telegram and X differently. The company’s spokesperson declined to comment for this article. But the pattern is clear: political considerations may play as large a role as technical ones in app store enforcement. When the founder of a major platform is a billionaire with significant influence over US politics and media, the calculus shifts.
For Telegram users, this week’s brief removal was a wake-up call. The app has become essential infrastructure for many, from journalists and activists to ordinary people in countries with unstable governments. The fact that Apple can pull it from the App Store at any time—whether justified or not—raises concerns about the concentration of power in a few technology companies.
On the other side, X’s continued presence on the App Store, despite a much more widespread and public scandal involving deepfakes of minors, suggests a different set of rules. Whether the same rules apply to everyone remains an open question, but experts like Chander believe the answer is clear: “Removing X would have likely caused a firestorm of political response against Apple.” In other words, the decision was never just about content moderation—it was about power, influence, and the willingness to face the consequences.
The underlying issue is that app store bans are blunt instruments. They are rarely used, and when they are, they are almost always reactive. Apple’s guidelines give it broad discretion, but that discretion can lead to inconsistent outcomes. In the case of Telegram, a single CSAM violation triggered an immediate removal. In the case of X, repeated violations involving AI-generated child sexual abuse material led to behind-the-scenes negotiations instead. The difference in approach is hard to explain without considering the political clout of the platforms' owners.
Yet, the world is changing. Governments are taking a closer look at platform accountability, and the EU’s Digital Services Act imposes strict requirements on “very large online platforms” to address systemic risks, including illegal content. Apple’s own App Store is also under increasing scrutiny from regulators in the US, the UK, and the EU. As pressure mounts, the company may find it harder to make exceptions for powerful individuals.
Until then, the answer to the question “Why does Apple keep banning Telegram, but never X?” may simply be that Apple is playing a political game—one where the rules are subject to change depending on who is in the room. And with Musk’s close ties to the Trump administration, his legal battles, and his enormous social media reach, it’s unlikely that Apple will risk a public confrontation with him anytime soon.
For Telegram, the future is uncertain. The company has made strides to improve its moderation and cooperate with legal authorities, but it continues to face scrutiny from governments around the world. Durov’s legal troubles in France and Russia have cast a shadow over the platform, and the recent App Store removal is a reminder that its fate rests, at least in part, on decisions made by a few powerful gatekeepers in Silicon Valley.
As the scale of AI-generated content grows, the pressure on app stores to act will only intensify. Deepfakes, CSAM, and other harmful content are becoming easier to produce and harder to identify. Whether Apple can continue to make these decisions without a clear, public framework for enforcement remains to be seen.
In the end, Apple's actions this week highlight a fundamental tension: while app stores promise equal treatment under their guidelines, real-world enforcement is rarely black and white. Power, politics, and personalities all play a role. The result is an inconsistent system that leaves users, developers, and even lawmakers wondering what it really takes to get removed from the App Store—and what it takes to stay.
Source: The Verge News