In rather not-so-surprising news, popular online messaging service Whatsapp is blocking URLs to rival app Telegram. The links appear as normal text messages and not as hyperlinks. Moreover, users cannot even copy them to paste into another app.
Pavel Durov, Founder of Telegram, tweeted, “Whatsapp started censoring links to Telegram in their Android app (i.e. for ~80% of the users).”
Telegram confirmed the activity to The Verge. "Typically after a media backlash, FB steps back and blames their intelligent filtering for the problem," a Telegram spokesperson said. "We expect the same to happen this time as well."
The censoring of the Telegram links seems to have started with a “silent” update pushed yesterday. The Verge notes that the update has the same version number as the previous one, but a Telegram volunteer confirmed that a new 2.12.367 update was deployed yesterday morning.
Blocking of URLs is not something new at Facebook, owner of WhatsApp. The social networking giant faced criticism back in 2010 for blocking Pirate Bay links in the newly launched messaging system. The Verge pointed out that the company also recently blocked any mention of Tsu.co, a social network that pays users a percentage of its ad revenue for each post.
