Monday evening the Telegram app briefly disappeared from the App Store search results after Apple reported content that violated its policies and removed the listing.

App removal and moderation steps

Apple said it had identified content that breached its rules, prompting a temporary delisting until the issue was addressed by the developer and platform moderators.

Telegram removed the offending posts and blocked the account responsible, after which Apple restored the app to the store.

Scale of platform moderation

Telegram reported that since the start of the year it has taken down more than 337,900 groups and channels for similar violations as part of broader content moderation actions.

Market reaction

The news hit the token market: Telegram’s GRAM fell to a three-month low of $1.29, losing about 8% from its pre-announcement level.

Following the initial drop the token partially recovered and was trading near $1.38 at the time of reporting.

Industry response

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, criticized Apple’s action, calling the company a monopolist that can arbitrarily cut access to services used by roughly a billion users due to the conduct of a single account.