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from the in-Soviet-Russia,-Telegram-rejects-you dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8317
Russia ordered a ban of the Telegram secure messaging app back in April, and the knock-on effects continue to cause issues for users outside of Russia. Following the messy block of 15.8 million IPs on Amazon and Google's cloud platforms, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov says Apple has been blocking updates for the app globally. The lack of Telegram app updates mean some features, like stickers, aren't working correctly in the recently released iOS 11.4 update.
"Apple has been preventing Telegram from updating its iOS apps globally ever since the Russian authorities ordered Apple to remove Telegram from the App Store," explains Durov in a Telegram message. "While Russia makes up only 7 percent of Telegram's userbase, Apple is restricting updates for all Telegram users around the world since mid-April."
Durov also claims the lack of app updates mean Telegram has also "been unable to fully comply with GDPR" before the May 25th deadline. While a lack of GDPR compliance is a concern for both end users and Telegram itself, app updates usually also include important security patches and bug fixes so if the block continues then iPhone users of the service could be left at risk.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/31/17412396/telegram-apple-app-store-app-updates-russia
See also:
Reuters
The New York Times
Phys.org
The Register
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Marand on Friday June 01 2018, @09:49PM
Considering the general SN userbase, the combination of "uses Telegram" and "uses iOS devices" is probably not nearly as common here as it is in other places like Slashdot or Reddit. The lack of discussion might be due to a lot of us (myself including) having very little to contribute due to this, rather than any sort of acceptance of the situation.
(And the ones that do use those devices have probably already resigned themselves to the lack of control Apple's walled garden approach gives end users, so they likely don't have much to say on it either, aside from maybe some futile complaining about something they can't change.)