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This is where I post thoughts about Telegram in a slightly less formal and more direct way than in the official Telegram blog (~70% of which is also written mostly by yours truly). Subscribe only if you're a hardcore Telegram fan.

  • Durov's Channel

    🥇Telegram is the fastest growing mobile app in 2021, leading this year’s Top Breakout Chart by Appannie. This means that the number of active users on Telegram increased faster than on any other mobile app in the world. 2021 will be remembered as the year when people grew tired of being disrespected by greedy corporations and chose the privacy and consistency of Telegram. And yet, there's so much more that we have in store for you. Thank you for joining Telegram early and taking this incredible journey with us 🎉

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    Telegram is launching Sponsored Messages – a tool that allows anyone to promote their channels and bots. Here is what you should know: 1. There will be no ads in chats on Telegram. If you use Telegram as the messenger that we launched in 2013 – you will never see a sponsored message. Sponsored messages can't appear in your chat list, private chats or groups. 2. User data will not be used to target ads. As with everything we do, our main priority is protecting the private data of our users. That's why unlike other apps we will not use your private data to display ads. Sponsored messages on Telegram are shown only in large public one-to-many channels with 1000+ members – and are based solely on the topic of the public channels in which they are shown. This means that no user data is mined or analyzed to display them. 3. Sponsored messages will be unobtrusive. Official sponsored messages are limited to 160 characters of text – without media or external links. You may see a maximum of one sponsored message per channel – and only after you’ve finished reading any new posts. 4. We are fixing ads that are already here. Some admins of one-to-many channels on Telegram already post ads in the form of regular messages. We hope that Sponsored Messages will offer a more user-friendly and less chaotic way for people to promote their channels and bots. Sponsored messages are currently in test mode and are not available to everyone. Once they are fully launched and allow Telegram to cover its basic costs (such as equipment and data centers that are used by channel admins to deliver their content to our hundreds of millions of users), we plan to start sharing ad revenue with the admins of the channels where Sponsored Messages are displayed – because it is fair. 5. With Telegram you're more ad-free than with WhatsApp. WhatsApp already shares user data with advertisers [1] [2] – even though they don’t show ads themselves. On Telegram, however, advertisers will never get your private data. Besides, if you use Telegram the way you use WhatsApp, you will never see a single ad. Sponsored messages can only appear in channels, which are a unique social networking feature Telegram added several years after launch. If WhatsApp introduces a similar feature, they are likely to also display ads there, like their parent company already does on Instagram and Facebook. Online ads should no longer be synonymous with the abuse of user privacy. We'd like to redefine how a tech company should operate by setting an example of a self-sustainable platform that respects its users and content creators.

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    🎂 As I am turning 37, I put together a list of 3 undervalued and 7 overvalued things in life. 3️⃣ Undervalued 1. Sleep. Sleep gives a boost to immunity, creativity and psychological well-being. 2. Nature. Nature is the environment that we are biologically designed to feel good in. 3. Solitude. Being alone offers the freedom to make spiritual and intellectual breakthroughs. 7️⃣ Overvalued 1. Big cities. Big cities are sources of pollution, crime and noise. It's good to have access to their resources, but advisable to live outside their borders. 2. Restaurants. Restaurants offer the slowest and least efficient way to eat. Cooking at home allows for healthier diets and more control over ingredients. 3. Hot weather. Sunny weather can bring about not only a lax attitude, but also a risk of cancer and faster aging. Colder temperatures, on the contrary, clarify spirit, body and mind. 4. Fashion. The endless quest to conform with ever-changing trends is expensive and unnecessary. Focusing on comfortable clothes makes life simpler and frees space for things that matter. 5. Real estate. Buying real estate often limits one's choices and is a questionable investment. Renting gives more freedom to move and explore different locations. 6. Social media. The incessant flow of junk cluttering our minds from social media decreases our happiness and creativity. Disconnecting from these internet services is the best thing we can do on any given day. 7. Celebrity advice. Famous people often give unwarranted advice outside their fields of expertise. For all important things in life, it's best to rely on hard science and expert opinion.

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  • Durov's Channel

    Yesterday Telegram experienced a record increase in user registration and activity. The daily growth rate of Telegram exceeded the norm by an order of magnitude, and we welcomed over 70 million refugees from other platforms in one day. I am proud of how our team handled the unprecedented growth because Telegram continued to work flawlessly for the vast majority of our users. That said, some users in the Americas may have experienced slower speed than usual as millions of users from these continents rushed to sign up for Telegram at the same time. I ask our existing users to say hi to their newly arrived friends, help them unpack, and let them know what we have in stock. Make sure they stick around and see why Telegram is light years ahead of the competition. For the new users I’d like to say this – welcome to Telegram, the largest independent messaging platform. We won’t fail you when others will.

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    On Telegram, people can publicly express reasonable concerns about vaccines. Large Telegram channels are one of the few remaining places on the Internet where users can raise their voice against various anti-Covid measures, which they feel have restricted their rights. What Telegram does not allow, however, is the distribution of calls for violence via public channels. Inciting violence has been prohibited by the Terms of Service of Telegram since 2015, so we take action every time this line is crossed. Yesterday we had to shut down an Italian channel "stopdittatura", which incited subscribers to harm medical doctors and other public officials related to vaccinations. Unfortunately, the channel admins failed to act even after our team warned them about the violation. We also had to block a similar German public channel "menschenreise_diskussion", which, just like "stopdittatura", had over 40,000 subscribers and actively incited violence against doctors. Such channels violate Telegram's rules, the rules of Apple and Google and also local laws. It's OK to fight for your rights. It's not OK to harm other people.

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    I wrote a detailed post explaining why Telegram sometimes has to take unusual actions in content moderation, such as following the policies of Google and Apple when they suspended a voting app last week. TLDR; Had the position of Apple and Google been different, we could have avoided complying with a local law that prescribed content moderation last weekend. However, picking a fight with these two tech companies AND a government at the same time results in an immediate shutdown of Telegram for millions of users. Such wars have a heavy price and should only be started in cases when the requirement of a law is in direct contradiction with human rights. Telegram gives its users more freedom than any other app. If Telegram has to temporarily remove some content due to a law, it means that other platforms would have removed it long before us. If you are in the mood for a long read, check out the whole post: telegra.ph/Why-Tel…pp-09-25

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    Another major Telegram update is out now after having been finally approved by Apple. It is packed with unique features that expand the boundaries of what a messaging app can do. Check them out. This new version of Telegram also contains an important upgrade that will allow our apps to work without interruption. Until now, Telegram used 32-bit values for the identifiers of users and channels. Due to its fast growth, Telegram had been quickly approaching the maximum number of 32-bit IDs, which is about 2.1 billion. That's why for the last 12 months we've been rebuilding nearly all of our apps, storage architecture and scripts to migrate to the 64-bit range (so we can expand to other galaxies without any issues). The latest update is critical to let new users sign up for Telegram and existing users keep creating channels and groups. After updating Telegram, some users may have to wait a minute or two for their chat database to be optimized for 64 bits. We are also investigating a few reports from the Android users that are facing connection issues after updating the app. We are fixing this, but if you don't want to wait, logging out and in again will help.
    Chat Themes, Interactive Emoji, Read Receipts in Groups and Live Stream Recording

    Today's update lets you set different themes for individual chats, share your feelings with loved ones using interactive emoji with fullscreen effects, record video and audio from live broadcasts, and see detailed read receipts in groups.

  • Durov's Channel

    The mind is our most powerful tool. There's nothing it can't do. According to numerous studies, it actively generates new ideas even when we rest or do nothing. Often we can come up with solutions to difficult problems simply after a full night's sleep. Just as our physical state depends on what we feed to our bodies, our mental state depends on the quality of information we feed to our brain. If we nourish our brain with real-life data that allows it to solve fundamental problems, it will process this data in the background and come up with unexpected solutions. It is unfortunate that most people prefer to feed their minds not with real-life facts that can let us change the world, but with random Netflix series or TikTok videos. On a deep level, our brain can't tell fiction from reality, so the abundance of digital entertainment keeps our subconscious mind busy producing solutions to problems that do not exist. To be creative and productive, we must first clear from our minds the sticky mud of irrelevant content with which “recommendation algorithms” flood it on a daily basis. If we are to reclaim our creative freedom, we must first take back control of our minds.

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    We generally assume that the world is becoming a better place every year. But when it comes to individual freedoms, the opposite is true. Most studies show humanity is now less free than several years ago. 20 years ago we had decentralized Internet and a relatively unrestricted banking system. Today, Apple and Google censor information and apps on our phones while Visa and Mastercard limit what goods and services we can pay for. Every year we give up more power and control over our lives to a handful of unaccountable corporate executives we didn't elect. Most of us willingly carry tracking devices – our phones – and allow corporations to use our private data to target us with content that keeps us distracted with low-quality entertainment. Unlike 20 years ago, we are now surrounded by surveillance cameras, which in countries like China use AI to make sure nobody can hide. In 2017, China overtook the US as the largest economy in the world by purchasing power, showing the world that individual freedoms are not required for economic development. Looking at China's success, more countries become authoritarian, curbing essential human rights such as freedom of speech, movement and assembly. Who is going to fix it? The most active and creative minds of our generation are too busy playing in the rapidly shrinking sandbox called "free enterprise" or producing digital content to keep everyone else glued to their devices for longer. The rest seem to be too distracted with the abundance of cheap digital entertainment to critically assess the trend and take action. Watching this, I wonder what will become the legacy of our generation. Will we go down in history as those who let free societies turn into dystopian nightmares? Or will we be remembered as those who defended the freedoms that previous generations fought so hard to win?

  • Durov's Channel

    🎂8️⃣ It’s hard to believe it’s been 8 years since Telegram first appeared in the App Store. According to research published last week, Telegram became the 7th most downloaded application worldwide in 2020. This is not surprising: for the last several years, Telegram has been the most feature-rich and user-friendly messaging app in the world. And yet, every single feature we add makes me think of new improvements we are yet to implement. It’s like reaching a peak of a mountain only to discover greater heights to climb from the new vantage point. That is what makes this journey so exciting. Thank you all for believing in Telegram early. And even if you just joined Telegram yesterday, it is still very early. From here, we shall reach new heights 🏔

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    Every few decades there is a drastic change in how we view important societal and scientific problems. What used to be a ridiculous idea yesterday can become the predominant opinion today, only to turn into an obsolete notion tomorrow. In the history of human beliefs, change is the only constant. Most people living in 1921 shared views that today are considered quaint at best, and dangerous at worst. The chances that our present-day convictions will remain relevant by 2121 are slim. In fact, we won't even have to wait 100 years, as the speed of change is accelerating. A good example is how quickly humanity changed its mind over the origins of Covid. Just a year ago, the idea that the virus originated from a Wuhan Lab was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms blocked posts promoting the lab leak theory. Today, however, this theory is on its way to becoming the mainstream scientific view of how the virus originated. Such instances make combating fake news and misinformation particularly challenging. They can also fundamentally undermine people's trust in the neutrality of social media platforms, and jeopardize future efforts to fight misinformation. Telegram never blocked posts discussing the lab leak theory, because we didn't think it's our role to decide for our users what they should believe. At the same time, we felt that our users had the right to be informed about Covid by official sources that reflected scientific consensus. That's why we worked with 19 governments to help them reach out to every Telegram user in their countries with up-to-date information on the pandemic. Today we call upon more governments to join the Telegram anti-Covid initiative to make sure more people around the world get access critical knowledge that can save lives. In my 20 years of managing discussion platforms, I noticed that conspiracy theories only strengthen each time their content is removed by moderators. Instead of putting an end to wrong ideas, censorship often makes it harder to fight them. That’s why spreading the truth will always be a more efficient strategy than engaging in censorship.

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    Why users shouldn’t worry about ads on Telegram

    I read an article that cautioned users from switching to Telegram from other apps, because "Telegram is going to introduce ads". This is misleading for at least 3 reasons:

    1. There will be no ads in chats on Telegram. Users who rely on Telegram as a messaging app, not a social network, will never see ads. Private chats and group chats are and will always be ad-free. As I outlined in December, ads are being considered only in large one-to-many channels (like this one), which do not exist in any other messaging app. So users ditching older apps for Telegram won’t increase the number of ads in their lives.

    2. User data will not be used to target ads. We believe that collecting private data from users to target ads the way WhatsApp-Facebook do is immoral. We like the approach of privacy-conscious services like DuckDuckGo: monetizing services without collecting information about users. So if we introduce ads in one-to-many-channels, they will be contextual – based on the topic of the channel, not targeted based on any user data.

    3. We are fixing ads that are already here. In most markets, content creators on Telegram already monetize their content by selling promotional posts in their channels. This is a chaotic market with multiple third-party ad networks pushing intrusive ads that create a negative user experience. We want to fix this situation by offering a privacy-conscious alternative for channel owners.

    Users will be able to opt out of ads, but I do think that privacy-conscious ads are a good way for channel owners to monetize their efforts – as an alternative to donations or subscriptions, which we are also working to offer them.

    Our end goal is to establish a new class of content creators – one that is financially sustainable and free to choose the strategy that is best for their subscribers. Traditional social networks have exploited users and publishers for far too long with excessive data collection and manipulative algorithms. It’s time to change this.

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    Telegram became the most downloaded mobile app in the world in January 2021.

    For the last 7.5 years, Telegram has steadily climbed the rankings for popular apps. Since its launch in 2013, Telegram’s user base has grown over 40% each year.

    What’s our secret? Consistency.

    For the last 7.5 years we’ve consistently defended the privacy of our users and regularly improved the quality and feature set of our apps.

    Anyone who stays true to their values and applies focused effort over a long period of time is bound to succeed in their area. This is true for any human occupation – sport, blogging, art, coding, business or studying.

  • Durov's Channel

    The "capitalism <-> socialism" opposition seems outdated. I prefer to think in terms of "centralization vs decentralization". Humans have evolved to perform best in small groups of less than 150 people. That's why wherever there's centralization and excessive hierarchy, there's inefficiency and underutilized human potential. Capitalist monopolies and socialist dictatorships are equally bad.

    In a natural environment, every small community is able to produce an outstanding leader and an independent thinker. In today's world of trillion-dollar monopolies and bloated governments, the potential of hundreds of millions of people is suppressed by the limitations imposed by our artificial societal structures.

    That is the reason why tens of thousands of people working at big corporations such as Facebook have failed to keep up with what our small team at Telegram has been implementing. That’s also the reason why countries like Russia fail to generate and retain global brands in their jurisdictions. Genuine creativity is rare in organizations and societies built on excessive hierarchies and lack of personal autonomy.

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    Some users wanted a way to move their chat history from WhatsApp over to Telegram. Two weeks ago I realized this should be theoretically possible, and yesterday we made this feature available on both iOS and Android, together with many other improvements. It also supports migrating chats from KakaoTalk and Line – two other Pre-Telegram apps.

    Nothing like this has ever been made possible by a major app, and our team had to implement some serious magic to make it work. We are happy with the result: moving messages to Telegram allows people to save disk space and stop worrying about third-party backups or changing devices.

    The feature currently imports messages to the end of the target Telegram conversation, but retains the original timestamps of messages. Some folks have been asking whether we can mix the existing messages in a Telegram chat with the imported messages in one unified timeline. This should be possible if the target chat (where you import messages to) has fewer than 100 messages, so we’ve started to work on that.

    We’ll also provide free APIs for third-party developers who want to create tools that will allow users to import messages to Telegram from anywhere. Hopefully, such tools will help add support for more apps than this first wave of three – and also allow users to import multiple chats or their entire inbox at once.

    The original meaning of the paper plane on the Telegram logo means “freedom”. For us, freedom of choice and data portability are paramount. People should be in complete control over their own data – and their own lives.

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  • Durov's Channel

    For the last two weeks, the world has been following the events in the United States with concern. While the US represents less than 2% of our user base, we at Telegram have also been watching the situation closely.

    Telegram welcomes peaceful debate and protest, but our Terms of Service explicitly prohibit distributing public calls to violence. In the last 7 years, we’ve consistently enforced this rule globally, from Belarus and Iran to Thailand and Hong Kong. Сivil movements all over the world rely on Telegram in order to stand up for human rights without resorting to inflicting harm.

    In early January, the Telegram moderation team started to receive an increased number of reports about US-related public activity on our platform. The team acted decisively by clamping down on US channels that advocated violence.

    Thanks to these efforts, last week our moderators blocked and shut down hundreds of public calls for violence that could’ve otherwise reached tens of thousands of subscribers. The team continues to process reports from users in addition to proactively removing content that directly incites violence.

    I would like to thank everyone who reported public channels that crossed the line. Keep it up! We value each of your reports. Telegram welcomes political debate coming from all sides of the political spectrum – but will act swiftly to stop those who incite people to inflict harm on others.

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    Since my last post, the already massive influx of new users to Telegram has only accelerated. We may be witnessing the largest digital migration in human history.

    Following this global phenomenon, two presidents started their Telegram channels:

    The President of Brazil – @jairbolsonarobrasil
    The President of Turkey – @RTErdogan

    They join a list of other heads of state already present on the platform:

    The President of Mexico – @PresidenteAMLO
    The President of France – @emmanuelmacron
    The Prime Minister of Singapore – @leehsienloong
    The President of Ukraine – @V_Zelenskiy_official
    The President of Uzbekistan – @shmirziyoyev
    The President of Taiwan – @iingtw
    The Prime Minister of Ethiopia – @AbiyAhmedAliofficial
    The Prime Minister of Israel – @bnetanyahu

    (Note that such verified accounts typically show a blue check mark in your chat list and search results.)

    We are honored that political leaders, as well as numerous public organizations, rely on Telegram to combat misinformation and spread awareness about important issues in their societies.

    Unlike other networks, Telegram doesn’t use nontransparent algorithms to decide whether a subscriber will see content they subscribed to or not. As a result, Telegram channels are the only direct way for opinion leaders to reliably connect with their audiences.

    By removing the manipulative algorithms that have become synonymous with 2010s technology platforms, Telegram channels restore transparency and integrity to public “one-to-many” communication.

  • Durov's Channel

    In the first week of January, Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly active users. After that it kept growing: 25 million new users joined Telegram in the last 72 hours alone. These new users came from across the globe – 38% from Asia, 27% from Europe, 21% from Latin America and 8% from MENA.

    This is a significant increase compared to last year, when 1.5M new users signed up every day. We've had surges of downloads before, throughout our 7-year history of protecting user privacy. But this time is different.

    People no longer want to exchange their privacy for free services. They no longer want to be held hostage by tech monopolies that seem to think they can get away with anything as long as their apps have a critical mass of users.

    With half a billion active users and accelerating growth, Telegram has become the largest refuge for those seeking a communication platform committed to privacy and security. We take this responsibility very seriously. We won’t let you down.

    Those of you who have used Telegram for the last several years know we’ve been consistent both when it comes to defending private data and to improving our apps. For those of you who just joined and are wondering what Telegram stands for, I’d like to quote my post from 2018:

    You – our users – have been and will always be our only priority. Unlike other popular apps, Telegram doesn’t have shareholders or advertisers to report to. We don’t do deals with marketers, data miners or government agencies. Since the day we launched in August 2013 we haven’t disclosed a single byte of our users' private data to third parties.

    We operate this way because we don’t regard Telegram as an organization or an app. For us, Telegram is an idea; it is the idea that everyone on this planet has a right to be free.