Word is circulating that Apple is planning to remotely axe the Telegram app from users' iPhones now that President Donald Trump and millions of free speech advocates have migrated there.
The social media platform notified its users on Tuesday that the app surpassed 500 million monthly active users during the first week of January, with 25 million new users joining just in the previous 72 hours alone.
Founder Pavel Durov said there was a massive increase in new users compared to the same time last year when roughly 1.5 million new users were signing up daily.
"We've had surges of downloads before, throughout our seven-year history of protecting user privacy but this time it is different," Durov is quoted as saying on his official "Durov's channel."
Most of the platform's new users appear to be out of Asia at 38 percent, along with 27 percent from Europe and 21 percent from Latin America. Eight percent come from the Middle East and North Africa.
"[People] no longer want to be held hostage by tech monopolies that seem to think they can get away with anything as long as their apps have a critical mass of users," Durov added. "We take this responsibility very seriously, and our users have been and will always be our only priority."
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Telegram does not have shareholders or advertisers to report to. It also does not mine data for marketers or deal with government agencies.
"Since the day we launched in August 2013, we haven't disclosed a single byte of our users' private data to third parties," Durov reassured.
To learn more about how the big guys in Big Tech are exploiting and taking advantage of their users, visit Censorship.news.
Don't let Apple control your digital life
None of this is pleasing to Apple, which thrives on censorship and keeping people in the dark about all things related to truth.
While we cannot yet confirm if Apple has full capacity to remove the Telegram app remotely, we can say that there is a way to prevent that from happening should it turn out to be true.
If you use an Apple device, the following instructions will ensure that Apple does not remove Telegram or any other app from your smartphone without your expressed permission:
• Go to "Settings"
• Press "Screen Time"
• Select "Content & Privacy Restrictions"
• Activate the button at the top right corner
• Select "iTunes & App Store Purchases"
• Make sure the "Deleting Apps" option is set to "Don't Allow"
If you are like this writer, you probably did not even know this hidden menu existed. This is how the tech giants love to operate, by the way, as they insert hidden selections by default that allow them to control your device without you even knowing it.
Rumors are also circulating that the latest Apple iOS update could disengage your phone's ability to pick up emergency messages from President Donald Trump. Your safest bet is to turn off automatic updates and refuse all prompts telling you that it is time to "update" your phone to the latest software.
If your iPhone continues to prompt you to download the latest iOS against your will, you can shut that "feature" off by doing the following:
• Go to "Settings"
• Press "iTunes & App Store"
• Under "Automatic Downloads," set slider to off position
If your phone has already downloaded the latest update on its own, you will need to delete it. You can do so by performing the following:
• Go to "Settings"
• Press "General"
• Select "iPhone Storage"
• Scroll down and select "iOS (version)"
• Select "Delete Update"
Once the update is deleted and automatic updates are turned off, you should no longer be prompted (more like nagged) to download the latest Apple updates.
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