These four highly banned apps remain legal in South Africa

A recent study by Linkee.ai has highlighted the most popular apps that have been banned in various countries worldwide, with Facebook leading the list. However, these apps have not yet been banned in South Africa.

Facebook takes top spot with 3.05 billion users

Of all the most popular apps banned worldwide, the app that is currently banned most in the world is Facebook.

As reported by bizcommunity, Facebook has 3.05 billion monthly users worldwide. The countries that have banned Facebook are China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea among other countries. Despite this, its revenue was still over $130 billion last year.

In 2016, North Korea officially announced it is blocking Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter in a bid to further control access to outside information, as reported at the time by The Guardian.

WhatsApp follows closely in Facebook’s footsteps

WhatsApp takes second place in the ranking of the most popular banned apps, with 3.03 billion monthly users, closely following Facebook. Like Facebook, the popular messenger is also banned in China and North Korea. However, it is also not allowed in Syria, Qatar, and the UAE. WhatsApp has fewer users in the US, with 98 million, but it is more searched online than Facebook, gathering over five million queries in a month.

YouTube banned in North Korea

YouTube ranks third with 2.7 million monthly users worldwide. It is the most searched app online to download, with over 10 million queries, and the second most used app overall. The only country that has banned YouTube is North Korea. However, it is facing partial bans and content restrictions in countries like China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Germany.

China banned YouTube already in 2009 after pro-democracy activists in China used the app to post videos related to protests in Tibet.

China chucks out Instagram

Instagram comes in fourth place with two billion monthly users. Instagram generated $60.3 billion in revenue in 2023, with $45 billion coming from users in the US. The app is extremely popular in the US. However, Vietnam, North Korea, China, and Turkey have banned the app.

Markedly, China banned Instagram 10 years ago, in 2014. The ban followed after people from Hong Kong used it to post photos related to pro-democracy protests, according to VOI.