Did the messaging service Telegram announce that Apple might be deleting the Telegram app from devices in August 2024? No, that's not true: No such announcement has ever been made by Telegram. A false social media hoax from 2021 resurfaced after Telegram's CEO, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France on August 24, 2024. It was debunked in 2021, and it's still false in 2024.
The claim resurfaced in a post (archived here) on Threads on August 25, 2024. It was captioned:
🚨BREAKING -- Telegram announced Apple might delete telegram from your device without notice. To prevent this apply these settings to your phone. ⬇️
This is how the post appeared on Threads at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Tue Aug 27 15:43:31 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories searched Google with the text of the caption, which produced an October 6, 2021, fact check by USA Today. It contained statements from spokespeople of Apple and Telegram saying the claim was false.
Previous fact checks suggested the rumor might have originated from reporting about a lawsuit filed (archived here) on January 17, 2021, against Apple filed by the group Coalition for a Safer Web, which was seeking to remove Telegram from Apple's app store. Now the same claim has resurfaced on social media after the arrest of Telegram's CEO with slightly modified captions, as if this warning came in advance of the arrest.
The composite image below shows two posts on Facebook. On the left is a May 16, 2021, post, and on the right an August 26, 2024, post. The first is captioned:
Apple have said they are going to remove telegram and any other non censored free speech platforms from the App Store and automatically delete them from iPhones without the users consent, so here's what to do to prevent this happening. 🙏🏼👊🏼
The 2024 post is captioned:
The CEO of the app Telegram, Pavel Durov has been arrested while visiting France for refusing to censor user's content.
Apple plans on deleting the app from the app store and from users iPhones without their knowledge and consent.
To avoid any apps from being deleted without your consent, follow these steps.
(Source: Lead Stories composite image with Facebook screenshots taken on Tue Aug 27 18:12:26 2024 UTC)
This claim is false, and the five-step instructions offered in the diagram would be useless even if it was true. These settings would not prevent Apple from removing an app from the app store. This setting would prevent someone, for example a child playing with a phone, from inadvertently deleting an app from the device. A question raised in the apple.com community was if it is still possible to play a game on a device after the app has been removed from the app store. The top-rated answer (archived here) was yes.
Yes, you can for as long as the app remains installed and is compatible with your installed iPadOS version.
Be aware, however, that apps are not part of any backups. Only app data is backed up. What this means is that if you ever have to restore your device from a backup, the apps that can't be re-downloaded from the App Store, will be gone.
At the time of writing, on August 27, 2024, there have been no announcements from either Apple or Telegram indicating that Telegram would be removed from the App Store elsewhere.
The claim had previously been reviewed by Check Your Fact.
Previous Lead Stories fact checks about technology can be found here.
