Banned but popular: The apps that have been blocked the most
Meta says Russian operation called ‘Doppelganger’ has persisted in efforts to undermine support for Ukraine by using fake accounts on social media – Copyright AFP Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV
A new study shows that the most popular app that is banned in multiple countries is Facebook with 3.05 billion monthly users. Following this, TikTok stands out as an app that may become banned in the US for 170 million users in the country.
PUBG Mobile closes the ranking as the only game on the list of the most popular banned apps.
Researchers based at Linkee.ai conducted a study to rank the most popular apps that are currently banned in other countries.The information about monthly world and US users and revenue was collected from Statista. Google searches in the US were added for additional context.
The final ranking was made based on the number of monthly users.
| App | Type | Monthly Users | US Users | Revenue Total 2023 | Revenue US 2023 | Banned in |
| social media | 3.05B | 175M | $134.9B | $61.2B | China, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uganda | |
| messaging app | 3.03B | 98M | $1.24B | $40M | China, North Korea, Syria, Qatar and the UAE | |
| Youtube | video sharing | 2.7B | 239M | $31.5B | $18B | North Korea, partial ban in Germany, China, North Korea, Thailand, Malaysia |
| Intagram | social media | 2B | 133.5M | $50.58B | $60.3B | China, Vietnam, North Korea, Turkey |
| search engine | 1.5B | 276M | $305.6B | $256B | China | |
| messaging app | 1.3B | 4M | $16.4B | $71.4M | India, partial ban in Canada, UK, New Zealand (government devices) | |
| TikTok | social media | 1B | 170M | $120B | $16B | India, partial bans in Nepal, New Zealand, Taiwan, Indonesia |
| social media | 335.7M | 76M | $3.4B | $1.75B | China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, and Turkmenistan | |
| Baidu | browser | 667M | 7.5M | $14.57B | 164M | India |
| Spotify | music service | 602M | 100M | $13.2B | $1.43B | China, Ethiopia, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Cuba and Venezuela |
From the above table, Facebook is the most popular app that is banned in other countries with 3.0 billion monthly users all over the world. It is currently banned in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea among other countries but it still brought over $130B in revenue last year.
Whatsapp takes the second place in the ranking of the most popular banned apps, getting 3.03 billion monthly users, closely trailing Facebook. Popular messenger is similarly banned in China and North Korea, but it is also not allowed in Syria, Qatar and UAE. Whatsapp has less users in the US with 98 million but it is more searched online than Facebook, gathering over 5M queries in a month.
Youtube is third with 2.7 million monthly users all over the world. Youtube is the most searched app online to download with over 10M queries as well as second most used app in this ranking, losing only to Google. Currently Youtube is banned only in North Korea but it also faces partial bans and content restrictions in China, Thailand, Malaysia and even Germany.
Instagram takes the fourth place with 2 billion monthly users, a billion less than WhatsApp or Facebook. Instagram earned $60.3B dollars in revenue in 2023 and $45B dollars came from the users in the United States. While hugely popular in the US, the app is banned in Vietnam, North Korea, China and Turkey.
Google is fifth in the ranking of the most popular apps banned in other countries, having 1.5B monthly users. The popular search engine has the most users in the ranking, accounting for 276 million monthly users. Google also has the biggest revenue with over $305 billion earned last year. Currently Google is banned only in China.
Banned but popular: The apps that have been blocked the most
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