WhatsApp and Telegram removed from AppStore in China

Apple has removed the WhatsApp messenger and the Threads social network, owned by the Meta corporation, as well as the Telegram and Signal messengers from its AppStore for users in China. This was reported on Friday The Wall Street Journal and other Western media, the corporation confirmed the deletion.

It is alleged that the applications were removed at the request of Chinese authorities, who cited a threat to national security. As Reuters notes, this demonstrates the Chinese government’s growing intolerance towards at least some foreign messaging platforms. Reuters notesthat other Meta products such as Facebook and Instagram have not been removed from the AppStore in China at this time.

There are no details about why Chinese authorities might consider WhatsApp or Telegram a security threat. Apple’s policy is that the corporation follows the laws of the countries where it operates, even if it does not agree with it. In the past, this position of Apple was criticized, including by Russian oppositionists, after the corporation agreed to the demands of Roskomnadzor and removed applications from the AppStore, as happened, for example, with an application dedicated to the so-called smart voting in the State Duma elections in 2021. In China, Apple removed The New York Times newspaper app from the AppStore in 2017.