Is Whatsapp & facebook VPN censored by Google?

Why it is unavailable

Five things can put an app out of one Google Play. Each is weighed below against what can be seen from outside — open a card for the reasoning.

• A government or a court demanded itPossible

  and Google complied. Google publishes a count of these per country each year and never says which apps they were. Google’s Transparency Report

  • VPN and proxy apps in the United States are unavailable at 3%, near the 4% for everything there, which cuts neither way.
• Google applied a rule, unaskedPossible

  either its own review guidelines, or its own reading of a local law, with nobody having demanded anything. This is the largest category in Google’s own removal figures by a wide margin, and it covers distribution permits as well as content — Google kept a free Bible app out of mainland China in 2021 for want of one. Google’s Transparency Report

  • VPN and proxy apps in the United States are unavailable at 3%, near the 4% for everything there, which cuts neither way.
• The developer withheld itPossible

  freely, or under legal advice of their own, or because Google’s guidelines require that kind of app to be limited to certain countries. Switching a country off is easy for a developer to do in Google’s own tools: it needs no new version of the app, and it leaves no public trace other than the app being unavailable.

• Something brokeUnlikely

  a rejected update, a lapsed certificate, a payment or licensing problem, a mistake nobody has got round to noticing.

  • Gone for 1 years.
• A local rule about paying for itRuled out

  gambling licences, financial rules, tax — the kind of law that governs a transaction. Google can obey every one of them by refusing the payment, which is why this is the only restriction we would accept and the only one that cannot touch a free app.

  • It is free, so Google sells nothing here.

Know of a statement, notice or order we have missed? Tell us →