Tech giant Apple is reportedly being sued by a Washington nonprofit group in federal court that is demanding that the company remove the encrypted messaging app Telegram from its app store.
The Washington Post reports that a Washington nonprofit group called the Coalition for a Safer Web has sued tech giant Apple in federal court. The lawsuit, filed on Sunday, demands that the chat and social media app Telegram be removed from Apple’s App Store for failing to crack down on extremist conversation on its platform following protests at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
The suit is an attempt to force Apple to act against Telegram as it has against Parler, a social media website that was removed from the Apple and Google Play app stores. Breitbart News recently reported that Parler also had its Amazon Web Services account suspended, effectively shutting down the site.
The coalition’s president, Marc Ginsberg, a former U.S. ambassador to Morocco, commented in an interview: “Telegram stands out by itself as the superspreader [of hateful speech], even compared to Parler.”
Ginsberg asserts in the suit that Telegram’s antisemitic content puts him in danger and that his ownership of an iPhone gives him standing to sue Apple in federal court to require that the company enforce its terms of service barring hate speech and incitement to violence on apps in the iOS App Store.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for Northern California, alleges negligent infliction of emotional distress and violation of the California business code. The suit is seeking unspecified compensatory damages and an injunction requiring Apple to remove Telegram from its app store.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com