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Apple has removed the Meta - owned end - to - end cipher messaging app WhatsApp from its App Store in China keep an eye on a governing social club citing national security concerns , the news agencyReutersreported Friday .
Meta ’s novel , Twitter - esque text - found societal networking app , Threads , has also been rive from the App Store for the same grounds , it say .
“ The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the remotion of these apps from the China storefront based on their national surety concern , ” Apple said in a statement sent to the news agency .
Meta confirmed to TechCrunch that its two apps are no longer useable on Apple ’s App Store in China but declined to provide any more details about the takedowns . “ We refer you to Apple for comment , ” a Meta representative tell us .
We also contacted Apple with questions about the removals but at pressure time the iPhone Creator had not responded .
According to Reuters , two other messaging apps have also been removed from Apple ’s App Store in China — namely Signal and Telegram . It cites information from app tracking house Qimai and AppMagic for this constituent of its report .
Apple has not confirm these two extra removals . But theAppleCensorship site , which get across App Store removals , disk bothSignalandTelegramas “ disappear ” from Apple ’s mainland China App Store .
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We reached out to Telegram regarding the condition of its iOS App but at press time it had not respond .
Asked about Reuters ’ report , Signal ’s president Meredith Whittaker tell TechCrunch that Signal was already blocked in China by the body politic ’s Great Firewall .
“ While Signal may have been usable to download in the past , Signal registration and message are apparently blocked , ” she said , propose it give little difference if its app no longer come out on the App Store since drug user get to the app from China would be unable to register or place subject matter .
Signal does not always seem to have been block in this path , though . Back in 2021,TechCrunch ’s Rita Liao reportedthat Signal worked absolutely in China , include without using a VPN . But , presumably , commonwealth censor have clamped down further on the end - to - remnant encrypted messaging app since then .
Earlier removals
It ’s not the first metre Apple has removed apps at the direction of China ’s cyberspace governor . Last summermultiple reproductive AI apps were taken off Apple ’s China App Store shortly before Taiwanese regulations targeted at generative AI were due to take effect .
Last yearanother Twitter alternative , Jack Dorsey - backed Damus , was also pulled from Apple ’s China App Store shortly after it had been approve .
Afew geezerhood agothe audio societal networking app Clubhouse was also pulled from Apple ’s fund in China shortly after its global liberation . In late years Apple has also removedpopular censoring circumvention tools(and previouslyVPN apps);RSS apps;podcast apps ; and evena Quran app , to name a few other deterrent example .
Why WhatsApp and Threads have been point for remotion from Apple ’s Chinese App Store now is n’t clear .
One is an end - to - end encrypted ( E2EE ) message app , the other is a microblogging - style social media app . ( Telegram has both secret messaging and one - to - many programme style features , with [ non - default ] proprietary E2EE only useable for so - called “ secret schmooze ” ; Signal offers industry gold - stock E2EE across all panorama of its app . )
Threads launch inearly Julylast year . The app itself has been lug by China ’s Great Firewall , mean drug user in China wanting to download it have to use a VPN to sidestep the censorship . Quite a telephone number patently managed to do so , asThreads quickly landed in the top 5on Apple ’s China App Store last summer .
A popular app would be more likely to catch more attention from China ’s state censors , potentially encouraging them to take extra action to clamp down on usage — such as set up Apple to remove the software from its storage .
At the same metre , other pop , Meta - owned apps , Facebook and Instagram , are still usable on Apple ’s China App Store , per AppleCensorship . But as TC ’s Liao pointed out , in a2021 post about go up custom of Signal and Telegram , “ China ’s censorship decisions can be arbitrary and inconsistent . ”
