Durov: An extortionist planted CSAM in a chat to get Telegram pulled from the App Store

Telegram founder Pavel Durov has said that the app's brief removal from the App Store on Monday evening was the result of a targeted attack. According to him, some extortionist planted child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in a public chat in order to provoke a reaction from Apple. Telegram was reinstated in the store within a few hours.

Durov describes the mechanics of the attack as a technical trick. Since Telegram, by his account, quickly removes illegal content from public groups through moderation, the attacker had to act differently: they edited an old message in an active chat, inserting “AI-altered” banned material. As a result, the content was effectively hidden from the group's members — they couldn't see it and therefore couldn't report it.

Extortion through complaints

Durov calls the attacker a “takedown extortionist” — someone who demands a ransom from community owners in exchange for a promise to leave their groups alone. The scheme, he says, works like this: automated accounts plant illegal content in public groups and then report them directly to Apple, getting communities removed whose owners refused to pay.

Durov insists that illegal pornography in Telegram's public groups is not a systemic problem, and that the very need to resort to messages edited “after the fact” and made invisible actually proves how effective the moderation is.

Two lessons for developers

Durov directs his main grievance at Apple: the company removed Telegram from the App Store without contacting the messenger's team in advance. “This creates a potential systemic risk for any mobile app that hosts user content,” he writes. “If an app used by more than a billion people can be pulled from the App Store without warning, then any app can be pulled.” According to him, the extortionists have found a way to manipulate Apple into acting too drastically.

Durov frames the second lesson more broadly: the tactics of such “coordinated complaint gangs” are evolving and threaten communities on a wide range of platforms. Telegram, he notes, has extensive experience recognizing these tricks — even at the risk of its own presence in the App Store — whereas other services may turn out to be less prepared.

Apple had not responded to The Verge's request for comment at the time of publication. It's worth noting the context in which Durov's statements come: Russia recently issued a warrant for his arrest, accusing Telegram of aiding terrorism, and in 2024 he was detained in France on charges that included facilitating illegal operations.

Source: The Verge