P. S. Just 2 weeks after the last major Telegram update, we’re launching new features today — a new type of channels and 3 new ways to support content creators. Enjoy!
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Telegram
Super Channels, Star Reactions and Subscriptions
Today is Telegram's 11th anniversary. Meet Star Reactions and Star Subscriptions that let users support content creators, paid media for bots and Business accounts, and a new mode for Telegram Channels that lets admins post as their other channels or personal…
❤️ Thanks everyone for your support and love!
Last month I got interviewed by police for 4 days after arriving in Paris. I was told I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram.
This was surprising for several reasons:
1. Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests. Its email address has been publicly available for anyone in the EU who googles “Telegram EU address for law enforcement”.
2. The French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance. As a French citizen, I was a frequent guest at the French consulate in Dubai. A while ago, when asked, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.
3. If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself. Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach. Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools.
Establishing the right balance between privacy and security is not easy. You have to reconcile privacy laws with law enforcement requirements, and local laws with EU laws. You have to take into account technological limitations. As a platform, you want your processes to be consistent globally, while also ensuring they are not abused in countries with weak rule of law. We’ve been committed to engaging with regulators to find the right balance. Yes, we stand by our principles: our experience is shaped by our mission to protect our users in authoritarian regimes. But we’ve always been open to dialogue.
Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country. We've done it many times. When Russia demanded we hand over “encryption keys” to enable surveillance, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money. We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated.
All of that does not mean Telegram is perfect. Even the fact that authorities could be confused by where to send requests is something that we should improve. But the claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue. We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports (like this or this ). We have direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent moderation requests faster.
However, we hear voices saying that it’s not enough. Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon.
I hope that the events of August will result in making Telegram — and the social networking industry as a whole — safer and stronger. Thanks again for your love and memes 🙏
Last month I got interviewed by police for 4 days after arriving in Paris. I was told I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram.
This was surprising for several reasons:
1. Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests. Its email address has been publicly available for anyone in the EU who googles “Telegram EU address for law enforcement”.
2. The French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance. As a French citizen, I was a frequent guest at the French consulate in Dubai. A while ago, when asked, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.
3. If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself. Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach. Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools.
Establishing the right balance between privacy and security is not easy. You have to reconcile privacy laws with law enforcement requirements, and local laws with EU laws. You have to take into account technological limitations. As a platform, you want your processes to be consistent globally, while also ensuring they are not abused in countries with weak rule of law. We’ve been committed to engaging with regulators to find the right balance. Yes, we stand by our principles: our experience is shaped by our mission to protect our users in authoritarian regimes. But we’ve always been open to dialogue.
Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country. We've done it many times. When Russia demanded we hand over “encryption keys” to enable surveillance, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money. We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated.
All of that does not mean Telegram is perfect. Even the fact that authorities could be confused by where to send requests is something that we should improve. But the claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue. We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports (like this or this ). We have direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent moderation requests faster.
However, we hear voices saying that it’s not enough. Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon.
I hope that the events of August will result in making Telegram — and the social networking industry as a whole — safer and stronger. Thanks again for your love and memes 🙏
🎉 Telegram has reached 10 million paid subscribers. 10 million people are now enjoying Telegram Premium!
🆕 Today, we’re introducing new features while phasing out a few outdated ones.
⛔️ We’ve removed the People Nearby feature, which was used by less than 0.1% of Telegram users, but had issues with bots and scammers.
🛍 In its place, we will be launching “Businesses Nearby”, showcasing legitimate, verified businesses. These businesses will be able to display product catalogs and accept payments seamlessly.
✂️ We’ve also disabled new media uploads to Telegraph, our standalone blogging tool, which seems to have been misused by anonymous actors.
☝️ While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk.
✊ That’s why this year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise.
🆕 Today, we’re introducing new features while phasing out a few outdated ones.
⛔️ We’ve removed the People Nearby feature, which was used by less than 0.1% of Telegram users, but had issues with bots and scammers.
🛍 In its place, we will be launching “Businesses Nearby”, showcasing legitimate, verified businesses. These businesses will be able to display product catalogs and accept payments seamlessly.
✂️ We’ve also disabled new media uploads to Telegraph, our standalone blogging tool, which seems to have been misused by anonymous actors.
☝️ While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk.
✊ That’s why this year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise.
Telegram
Star Giveaways and More
With today's update, groups and channels can use Telegram Stars as prizes in Giveaways. Also, any article you open in the Telegram Browser can now be converted to Instant View, making it easy to read.
🔎 Search on Telegram is more powerful than in other messaging apps because it allows users to find public channels and bots. Unfortunately, this feature has been abused by people who violated our Terms of Service to sell illegal goods.
💪 Over the last few weeks, a dedicated team of moderators, leveraging AI, has made Telegram Search much safer. All the problematic content we identified in Search is no longer accessible. If you still manage to find something unsafe or illegal in Telegram Search, please report it to us via @SearchReport.
🚫 To further deter criminals from abusing Telegram Search, we have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, ensuring they are consistent across the world. We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.
☝️ These measures should discourage criminals. Telegram Search is meant for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal goods. We won't let bad actors jeopardize the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users.
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Telegram
Gifts, Verification Platform and More
Users can now send Gifts to their friends: the recipients of gifts can display them on their profile pages or turn them into Stars. Additionally, Telegram launched a platform for businesses to verify customer phone numbers: this new verification platform…
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#lifestories
On the 27th of August 2024, I was still in the police station in Paris. It was my third day there. With no devices or internet access, it felt like an extreme digital detox.
That day I was having my regular hours-long interview with the police. Between the questions, I asked my lawyer if my ❤️ Julia would come for questioning too. He said she was expected to, but couldn’t come. I pressed him on the reasons. “Got scared? Left Paris?”, I asked. He hesitated. “She’s pregnant,” he finally said.
It was not the answer I expected at that moment. I remained calm throughout my time in police custody, but this turn of events caught me off guard. After a pause, I said: “Thank you for the good news”. Other people present — the translator, the clerk, the policeman — produced awkward smiles.
I later learnt that the police didn’t know how to break the news of Julia’s pregnancy to me. The circumstances were not exactly celebratory. Julia was alone in a foreign country she’d never been to before. No one knew when I would be able to talk to her again.
Luckily, I was released late in the evening the next day. As I entered the rooftop terrace of the place Julia was staying at, magnificent fireworks erupted right in front of me. Below, the opening ceremony of the Paralympics had just begun.
But the mood was not festive. I learnt that while I was away, the pressure on Julia had been insane. Some blogger started a rumor that she was a “Mossad agent.” Other people came up with the nonsensical idea that it was her posts (and not my chartered flight details) that had prompted the police to welcome me at the airport.
With her devices confiscated, she couldn’t access her accounts on Telegram and Instagram for weeks. Her going radio silent on social media provoked even more speculation. Cyber-bullying aimed at her kept reaching new highs.
Julia stood strong. But, unlike me, she wasn’t used to hostility. She is not made for war.
Two days ago, she was visiting the doctor who monitored her pregnancy. I was in the middle of my 12-hour work day when Julia sent me “😭😭😭” from the doctor’s office. I instantly knew what was wrong.
On the 27th of August 2024, I was still in the police station in Paris. It was my third day there. With no devices or internet access, it felt like an extreme digital detox.
That day I was having my regular hours-long interview with the police. Between the questions, I asked my lawyer if my ❤️ Julia would come for questioning too. He said she was expected to, but couldn’t come. I pressed him on the reasons. “Got scared? Left Paris?”, I asked. He hesitated. “She’s pregnant,” he finally said.
It was not the answer I expected at that moment. I remained calm throughout my time in police custody, but this turn of events caught me off guard. After a pause, I said: “Thank you for the good news”. Other people present — the translator, the clerk, the policeman — produced awkward smiles.
I later learnt that the police didn’t know how to break the news of Julia’s pregnancy to me. The circumstances were not exactly celebratory. Julia was alone in a foreign country she’d never been to before. No one knew when I would be able to talk to her again.
Luckily, I was released late in the evening the next day. As I entered the rooftop terrace of the place Julia was staying at, magnificent fireworks erupted right in front of me. Below, the opening ceremony of the Paralympics had just begun.
But the mood was not festive. I learnt that while I was away, the pressure on Julia had been insane. Some blogger started a rumor that she was a “Mossad agent.” Other people came up with the nonsensical idea that it was her posts (and not my chartered flight details) that had prompted the police to welcome me at the airport.
With her devices confiscated, she couldn’t access her accounts on Telegram and Instagram for weeks. Her going radio silent on social media provoked even more speculation. Cyber-bullying aimed at her kept reaching new highs.
Julia stood strong. But, unlike me, she wasn’t used to hostility. She is not made for war.
Two days ago, she was visiting the doctor who monitored her pregnancy. I was in the middle of my 12-hour work day when Julia sent me “😭😭😭” from the doctor’s office. I instantly knew what was wrong.
Telegram
Vavia’s
24.08.24
After landing in Paris, we were held at the airport for 3 hours. Police checked all our belongings and took our devices. Luckily I managed to call my mom before that so she wouldn’t worry. Then they let me and Mario (Pavel’s assistant) go, but kept…
After landing in Paris, we were held at the airport for 3 hours. Police checked all our belongings and took our devices. Luckily I managed to call my mom before that so she wouldn’t worry. Then they let me and Mario (Pavel’s assistant) go, but kept…
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Should I tell you how it happened in another “life stories” post? Feel free to vote in the meaningful poll below
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#lifestories 🐶
Exactly 18 years ago today, I launched VK—my first large company. Below is the story of how it happened.
I graduated from Saint-Petersburg University in the summer of 2006. I wanted to keep in touch with my former classmates, but I knew it would be hard without a website where everyone could find each other. So, in late August 2006, I set a goal—to build a social network for university students and graduates in four weeks.
I was pretty good at coding. At 12, I built web-based games with vector animations and sound effects. At 13, I was already asked to teach older kids Pascal (a computer language) in summer camps for programmers.
And yet, planning to build a fully-fledged social network in four weeks was overconfident. To make it worse, I decided not to use any ready-made third-party modules. I wanted to create everything from scratch: from profiles and private messages to photo albums and search.
The task seemed too large to grasp. Where do I even start? Back then, my brother Nikolai lived in Germany. Nikolai is a brilliant mathematician and algorithmic programmer, but he’s always considered web development beneath him. At that time, he was focused on his Math thesis at the Max Planck University in Bonn. He refused to help with the code but gave advice: “Write the code for user authorization first,” he said. “You’ll get through.”
This made sense. I started with a login page that generated session IDs. Sessions could then be used to identify users, show them their profile pages, and allow them to edit them. Even the sign-up process could wait: I prepopulated the entries for the first few users manually in the database.
That's when I first understood it clearly: Every complex task is just a combination of many simple ones. If you split a big project into manageable parts and arrange them in the right order, you can get anything done. In theory. In practice, you also encounter all kinds of technical obstacles that test your persistence.
In September 2006, I typically wrote code for 20 hours in a row, had one meal and then slept for 10 hours. After a day of work, I’d boil myself a bucket of pasta and eat it with a generous amount of cheese. No other food was required. I didn’t care whether it was day or night outside. Social connections stopped existing. All that mattered was the code.
I tried to make each section of my project flawless, and that took time. Obsessing over details didn’t help to get everything done in four weeks. But being the only team member allowed me to minimize time spent on internal communication. And since I knew every line of the code base by heart, I could find and fix bugs faster.
On October 10, 2006, I had a beta version of the social network up and running. I called it VKontakte (VK), which means “in contact”. It took me six weeks instead of four to create it. But the result was worth it. Users that I invited from my previous project—a students’ portal I’d been building since 2003—signed up by the thousands and started to invite friends.
I kept adding new features quickly, and competitors struggled to catch up. A few months later, I hired another developer. By that time, VK already had a million members. Within seven years, VK would reach 100 million monthly users. At that point, I was fired by the board of VK, so I left the company to focus fully on Telegram.
That experience of single-handedly building the first version of VK in 2006 was so valuable that it defined my career. As the sole member of the product team, I had to do the work of a front-end developer, back-end developer, UX/UI designer, system administrator, and product manager—all at once. I got to understand the basics of all these jobs. I learned the tiniest details of how a social network works.
I also learned that there are no complex tasks in this world—only many small ones that look scary when combined. Split a big task into smaller parts, organize them in the right sequence—and “you’ll get through”.
Exactly 18 years ago today, I launched VK—my first large company. Below is the story of how it happened.
I graduated from Saint-Petersburg University in the summer of 2006. I wanted to keep in touch with my former classmates, but I knew it would be hard without a website where everyone could find each other. So, in late August 2006, I set a goal—to build a social network for university students and graduates in four weeks.
I was pretty good at coding. At 12, I built web-based games with vector animations and sound effects. At 13, I was already asked to teach older kids Pascal (a computer language) in summer camps for programmers.
And yet, planning to build a fully-fledged social network in four weeks was overconfident. To make it worse, I decided not to use any ready-made third-party modules. I wanted to create everything from scratch: from profiles and private messages to photo albums and search.
The task seemed too large to grasp. Where do I even start? Back then, my brother Nikolai lived in Germany. Nikolai is a brilliant mathematician and algorithmic programmer, but he’s always considered web development beneath him. At that time, he was focused on his Math thesis at the Max Planck University in Bonn. He refused to help with the code but gave advice: “Write the code for user authorization first,” he said. “You’ll get through.”
This made sense. I started with a login page that generated session IDs. Sessions could then be used to identify users, show them their profile pages, and allow them to edit them. Even the sign-up process could wait: I prepopulated the entries for the first few users manually in the database.
That's when I first understood it clearly: Every complex task is just a combination of many simple ones. If you split a big project into manageable parts and arrange them in the right order, you can get anything done. In theory. In practice, you also encounter all kinds of technical obstacles that test your persistence.
In September 2006, I typically wrote code for 20 hours in a row, had one meal and then slept for 10 hours. After a day of work, I’d boil myself a bucket of pasta and eat it with a generous amount of cheese. No other food was required. I didn’t care whether it was day or night outside. Social connections stopped existing. All that mattered was the code.
I tried to make each section of my project flawless, and that took time. Obsessing over details didn’t help to get everything done in four weeks. But being the only team member allowed me to minimize time spent on internal communication. And since I knew every line of the code base by heart, I could find and fix bugs faster.
On October 10, 2006, I had a beta version of the social network up and running. I called it VKontakte (VK), which means “in contact”. It took me six weeks instead of four to create it. But the result was worth it. Users that I invited from my previous project—a students’ portal I’d been building since 2003—signed up by the thousands and started to invite friends.
I kept adding new features quickly, and competitors struggled to catch up. A few months later, I hired another developer. By that time, VK already had a million members. Within seven years, VK would reach 100 million monthly users. At that point, I was fired by the board of VK, so I left the company to focus fully on Telegram.
That experience of single-handedly building the first version of VK in 2006 was so valuable that it defined my career. As the sole member of the product team, I had to do the work of a front-end developer, back-end developer, UX/UI designer, system administrator, and product manager—all at once. I got to understand the basics of all these jobs. I learned the tiniest details of how a social network works.
I also learned that there are no complex tasks in this world—only many small ones that look scary when combined. Split a big task into smaller parts, organize them in the right sequence—and “you’ll get through”.
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They come from one of my favorite emoji packs — BirthdayCollection
Enjoy!
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core.telegram.org
Telegram Gateway
Verify phone numbers of your users for just $0.01 per code through Telegram Gateway.
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Telegram
Improved Videos and Much More
Today's update adds faster loading, better quality and new speed controls to videos, last edit timestamps, attaching media to sent messages, increased limits for mini apps, new monetization options for developers – and much more.
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