Last night Apple briefly removed Telegram from the AppStore because a user had planted illegal porn in a public chat. Telegram was restored within hours. But I want to explain what happened — to warn other app developers and help protect online communities from similar attacks. Because Telegram quickly removes illegal content from public groups using all kinds of moderation tools, the attacker had to resort to a technical trick. He inserted AI-modified illegal content by editing an old message in an active group chat. As a result the content was effectively hidden from the group’s members, preventing them from seeing/reporting it. The attacker was a takedown extortionist: someone who demands ransom from group owners in exchange for not targeting their communities. These extortionists use automated accounts to plant illegal content in public groups and then report it directly to Apple, attempting to trigger the removal of legitimate communities whose owners refused to pay them. From a practical standpoint, illegal pornographic content in Telegram’s public groups is not a systemic problem. Our moderation is effective. The fact that attackers must resort to backdated, effectively invisible content and other technical tricks proves this. ⚠️ However, there are two important lessons here for app developers and online communities: — Extortionists have found a way to manipulate Apple into overreacting. Apple removed Telegram from the App Store before contacting us. This creates a potential systemic risk for every mobile app that hosts user-generated content. If an app used by more than a billion people can be removed from the App Store without prior warning, any app can be. — The tactics used by takedown extortionists are evolving, putting communities across social platforms at risk. Telegram has extensive experience identifying the tricks used by coordinated reporting gangs and protecting legitimate communities (even when doing so risks our own app being temporarily removed from the App Store). Other platforms may not be equally prepared. Stay vigilant! ☝️

Russia has designated me as a “terrorist” for refusing its demands for mass surveillance and censorship on Telegram. Under Russian law, I’m banned from “publishing information on the Internet” 😌 Russian officials are clearly confused about who can ban whom from the Internet 😉

🇬🇪Georgia is becoming a major business hub. The country’s economy doubled in 5 years and is growing by 8% a year. International tech companies pay 0% corporate tax and just 5% on dividends and salaries. Georgia is seriously underrated as a place to visit and do business.

🌍 This summer will see the largest rollout of a non-custodial crypto wallet in human history. ⚡️Instant zero-fee crypto transactions for over a billion users are about to become reality. We're bringing a native non-custodial Gram wallet to every Telegram app! 💎

Telegram now has a Rich Text Editor. It supports tables, headings, inline media, lists, AI content, formulas, and more. Available only to Premium subscribers, because otherwise we’d have to call it Poor Text Editor ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Indian telecom Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users OUTSIDE India (including the UAE) via a rogue method called BGP hijacking. The sabotage seems intentional, as Reliance has ignored multiple reports. This may be part of a competitive war, as Reliance is partially owned by Meta — the company behind WhatsApp. Network operators are advised to reject unauthorized BGP announcements from Reliance (AS18101) to prevent route hijacks and ensure stable Internet access for their users. Such abuse of global Internet routing is alarming. I wouldn’t be surprised if Reliance/WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India.

Banning social media for teenagers only puts them in greater danger. Teens are forced to switch to VPNs — and unlock far worse illegal content. We’ve seen this before. When the Russian government banned Telegram, 95% of Russian teenagers kept using it. They just moved to VPNs.

We now support rich formatting for all chatbots. Tables, nested lists, inline media, formulas, headers and more — right in Telegram messages. 🔨 Start building! Docs:

WhatsApp encryption is a giant fraud. The state of Texas just sued WhatsApp for lying to users about privacy — because WhatsApp employees have access to “virtually all” private messages. Now we know what WhatsApp’s founder meant when he said he “sold his users’ privacy.”

Your Telegram inbox can now run itself. Assign a bot to read and reply for you — with granular control over its permissions and chat access. API docs: