WhatsApp bans Telegram links: Chat app won’t let people click on links to its competitor
The move seems to have come with a silent update, and won’t let people copy as well as click on links
WhatsApp appears to have banned links to its competitor, Telegram.
Facebook’s chat app won’t let people click on or copy any links that include the address of Telegram, an app that serves much the same function.
The links still show up in the messages but just as plain text.
The problem appears to be limited to Android and has appeared in the app overnight, without any notification or explanation. It doesn’t seem to happen on every device and iPhone versions of the app appear to have escaped.
If users try and share a link that begins with Telegram.me or Telegram.org, it will show up only as text and not as a link. The message also seems to be limited in other ways — the app seems to ban people from copy and pasting the link, so that it must be opened up by writing it back into a new window.
The block also affects Telegram.com, an unrelated site that is run by a local newspaper in the US.
Facebook has pursued similar tactics before.
In 2010, it banned people from sharing links to The Pirate Bay in its Messenger system. And this year it banned completely any post that included a link to a competitor called Tsu.co, a small invite-only social network.
But the new block is thought to be the first time that WhatsApp has blocked any link.
It isn’t clear whether WhatsApp is banning the links on purpose or by accident. Facebook has previously said that its systems automatically ban certain links, without prompting, when the algorithm thinks that they might be being used for spam.
Facebook and WhatsApp did not initially respond to a request for comment.
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