Pavel Durov

🚨 Two years ago, I was detained in Paris by police for 3 days — the longest they can hold someone before charging them. In an unprecedented move, French authorities accused the head of a major platform of crimes committed by its users. That investigation is still ongoing, although it makes less sense with each passing year. Why? Because we now have extensive evidence that Telegram was neither worse than other popular platforms at moderation, nor the worst at cooperating with authorities. So why was Telegram singled out? Over the last two years, we have seen a pattern emerge in multiple countries: Telegram is quietly pressured to grant political favors — such as illegal censorship or surveillance. When we refuse, local media and “non-governmental” organizations launch orchestrated campaigns portraying Telegram as a cesspool of crime, from child pornography to terrorism. Our moderation is no worse than that of other major platforms. Yet these campaigns instill the idea that Telegram should be persecuted or restricted. Suddenly, officials start caring about crime and protecting children — but only on platforms that reject their secret political demands. Platforms that accept such deals get away with almost anything — including literally selling ads promoting child pornography. Is the French investigation against me political? It certainly fits the pattern we see elsewhere, mostly in authoritarian countries. And it definitely raises questions. In time, this investigation may itself be investigated — especially now that Macron’s war against free speech is facing pushback. This month, France’s Constitutional Council struck down his social media ban for children under 15 on freedom-of-expression grounds.

💎 Telegram has applied for the .gram domain zone. If the application is approved by ICANN, a billion Telegram users could get their own second-level domains. 🖥 For example, @durov would get durov.gram, and @monk would get monk.gram. Users would be able to set up their interactive websites hosted by Telegram — just by typing one prompt ✨

The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) ends today. 🇷🇺Students from Moscow and St. Petersburg won 2 🥇gold and 2 🥈silver medals. Congratulations to Vladimir Zhiganov (#2 overall!), Maksim Kravchenko, Sergei Mukhanov, and Vladimir Zvezdin. 🇰🇿Kazakhstan did well too, winning 1 🥇gold and 3 🥈silver medals to finish in the top five as a team, while Maksim Tsoy came #5 overall. 🇺🇿Uzbekistan, the host country, put on a great showing, winning 1 🥈 silver and 3 🥉bronze medals. 🇨🇳The strongest results of all, though, came from China 👏 At today's award ceremony, the IOI organizers are giving the 188 Algorithm Cups 🎁🎁🎁 to the winners. The organizers of the sister olympiad, IOAI, are sending the 220 Intelligence Cups 🏆🏆🏆 to their winners remotely. These are the only digital collectibles Telegram has issued this year, so they could end up worth much more than the guaranteed $1,000 for gold. We're proud to support the brightest young minds of our time 🧠

1️⃣3️⃣ Telegram turns 13 today. For over half that time — 7,5 years — it's been one of the 10 most downloaded mobile apps in the world. A whole generation has grown up with it 💪 🎂 Happy birthday, Telegram!

🇺🇿 The 2026 International Olympiad in Informatics starts today in Tashkent. 🏆 The IOI is the ultimate coding competition for high-school students. Years ago, many members of the Telegram team won medals there. 🤝 To support the best young programmers in the world, Telegram will award the 235 winners exclusive digital collectibles — Algorithm Cups — worth at least $117,000 in total. 🕌 It’s fitting that IOI is hosted in Uzbekistan — the homeland of Al-Khwarizmi, the father of algebra whose name became the word “algorithm." Let the best algorithm win! 💪

🏆 The International Olympiad in AI finished yesterday in Astana. 🇷🇺 The Russian team took first place in the team competition, and Artem Gorokhov from my home city won the individual event. Well done! 💪 🇰🇿 I'm equally happy for the host country, Kazakhstan, whose Dauzhan Beketov took the second-highest individual score.👏 📩We're in touch with the organizers to deliver the winners' prizes from Telegram ($106,500+) securely next week. Congratulations to all the winners! 🏆

🍎 Last night, Apple briefly removed Telegram from the App Store because a single user had planted illegal pornographic content in a public group 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 user reports, AI filters, content hashes, and other 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 and promptly 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! ☝️

🧠 The 2026 International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence starts today. As a token of support for those who will reinvent our civilization, we'll issue 🏆 240 exclusive Intelligence Cups to the winners. 💵 We guarantee minimum buyback prices ($1,000 per Gold Cup, etc.), but the cups' limited supply may make them worth much more on the secondary market. Good luck, AI coders! 🍀

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💣 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 😉

🇬🇪 Very impressed with Georgia. 🏔 The country is known for its warm people, ancient culture, local food and epic landscapes. But it doesn’t stop there. 📈 Thanks to its government’s business-friendly policies, Georgia is becoming a major business hub. ❎️ The country’s economy doubled in 5 years and is still 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. I'll be back very soon! ✈️

🌍 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 supports carousels One small step for messaging, one giant leap toward turning cat photos into keynote presentations. 😺

🩵 Telegram now has a Rich Text Editor. It supports tables, headings, inline media, lists, AI content, formulas, and more. 😈 Messaging apps will never be the same!

⚠️ 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 suspicous. I wouldn’t be surprised if Reliance/WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India.

🚫 India’s IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions. This punishes 150 million ordinary Telegram users in India — not the insiders who leaked the exam materials. And the ban hasn't stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps. 🛡 We’ve done a lot to help fix the problem — even though its source is not Telegram. Over the past few weeks, we removed hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India. We’ve also been making the “edited” label more visible to prevent backdating scams. 🏳️ Telegram is a force for good. Banning it — even temporarily — is a mistake.

⛔️ The UK government wants to ban social media for children under 16. But banning social media for kids only puts them in greater danger. They will be pushed to use 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. Same in Iran. Parents already have the tools to restrict their kids’ digital habits: parental controls, screen-time limits — or no smartphone at all. 🤦‍♂️ Instead, many parents give toddlers iPads just to keep them quiet. No amount of government regulation will fix that. Under the new law, all social media users in the UK will have to “prove” they’re over 16 — with an ID, face scan or bank card. 🚨 Thousands in the UK are already arrested for political posts every year. Is this really about protecting children — or identifying more people to arrest? P. S. More about digital freedom in my speech — the source material for our $200,000 clipping contest.

🏆 Telegram is launching a $200,000 contest for content creators. 🎬 Create a video about digital freedom using ideas and footage from my speech — plus any content or ideas of your own. 📈 Get 10,000+ organic views for a chance to win a share of the prize fund. 📣 Full details in the @contest channel.

🖥 Don't be surprised if you see tables, nested lists, inline media, formulas, headers and more in Telegram messages. 📖 We now support rich formatting for all chatbots. 🔨 Start building! Docs for chatbot devs →

🔄 Telegram’s new update is out. Lots of great new features. 😂 But most importantly: the announcement is actually fun to read.