Facebook's messaging app, WhatsApp, has reportedly started blocking links to the product's rival mobile app, Telegram, so that users can no longer share links to the competitor's apps.
The URLs shared to Telegram from WhatsApp only appears as a broken link and users are left unable to click on or copy the link to Telegram, reports Tech Crunch. For now, it seems that the blocking of links only appears on Android, and has not yet affected iOS users, even if the app was updated only 3 days ago.
Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, has been long notorious for blocking URLs, mostly that of those sites and companies that are viewed as competition. According to The Verge, Facebook faced heat in 2010 after blocking links to PirateBay in the newly launched messaging system. Recently, Facebook has also been blocking any links that lead to social media platform, Tsu.co, a social media service that pays users a percentage of its ad revenue for each post.
Techspot notes that the problem started occurring with the updated 2.12.367 version of the app that was rolled out today. It is still to be confirmed whether this is an intentional attempt to block competitors out from WhatsApp or if its a bug that Facebook's messaging service is experiencing.
Telegram gained its popularity following shut downs of the WhatsApp application when the service experienced problems. The hype was later fuelled by news that Telegram was being used by ISIS as a recruitment tool, causing an influx of people to flock in due to controversy. The company later announced that they would be deliberately blocking links that may co-relate to any form of terrorist activity.
The volume of messages being sent through Telegram was reported to be about 12 million messages in September, a large spike compared to the 1 Billion it tallied in February of the same year. Telegram is still far off from the market share that WhatsApp cursenty holds, which totals to over 900 million monthly users.
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