Telegram fell under Apple
Apple has blocked Belarusian channels on its devices in the Telegram messenger - Ya/We Omon, Shkvarka News, Pridybaylo, Lebedeva, Azarenok, Lyudazhor.
The reason is an alleged violation of application placement rules. The company did not provide more detailed explanations.
But the Telegram team explained the situation.
“We have received a repeated complaint from Apple representatives that your channel violates the App Store rules. In particular, the channel disseminates messages that degrade the dignity of a person based on his nationality. We are forced to restrict access to the channel on iOS devices,” says a message sent to channel authors.
“Nobody watches Lukashenko’s propaganda so much that journalists should be included in all Western sanctions, broadcasts should be banned under pain of fines, and their pages should be deleted. And the West is strong, yes,” Belarusian TV journalist Grigory Azarenok commented on the ban.
The channel of RT correspondent Konstantin Pridybaylo, who wrote about Belarus, was also blocked. He promptly opened a new channel.
“We can't be broken. Can't stop. Apple doesn’t need honest Russian journalism, but we will continue to work and create what is frank, pure, and important,” Pridybaylo wrote.
He also published screenshots of posts for which he was banned from Telegram. They are mainly devoted to the situation in Ukraine.
“For calls to kill Russians, Russian soldiers, for publishing personal data of journalists, for everything that is happening in Ukrainian, Liberots, Navalnist telegram channels, they will not be banned. And then they ban me,” Pridybaylo is indignant.
Belarusian journalist Ksenia Lebedeva also introduces readers to the posts because of which her channel was banned.
“So, I looked through the links to see what kind of publications disturbed the peace of Apple: information on the Northern Military District, copyright materials from Donbass, that Zelensky is a clown, and Ukraine is behaving like an American whore. Actually, what’s wrong?” – Lebedeva is surprised.
The block was blocked by the historian from Düsseldorf Alexander Friedman, who often writes about Belarus.
“The systematic removal of propaganda channels (both Belarusian and Russian) from Telegram can only be welcomed... Telegram, however, is not guided by beliefs or moral principles. He is trying to improve his image in Europe and the USA,” Friedman wrote in his TG channel.
Russian commentators predict that censorship in Telegram will only increase.
“Sad news. Telegram went under Apple. And soon it will be as stuffy here as everywhere else. There will be nowhere to go. The last free space remained,” wrote RT columnist Maxim Kononenko.
“This was to be expected. Telegram is not and has never been a platform friendly towards the Russian Federation. Telegram is a business, and a business should make money. Telegram is in almost every country and interacts in one way or another with the authorities of these countries. Between “lose business” and “crash your channel / leak all your correspondence,” Telegram will obviously choose the latter.
Under no circumstances can the owner of Telegram be called a Russian patriot. It is located outside of Russia. The Telegram owner’s eggs are located outside of Russia; specially trained people from a number of foreign structures can touch them at any time and for any purpose. It's time for us to think about the "next platform." Telegram will sooner or later become a thing of the past.
It is desirable that new similar projects be entirely our development and “under us,” even if they formally position themselves as “independent,” says former speaker of the DPR Foreign Ministry Konstantin Dolgov.
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