Pavel Durov

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 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 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! 🍀

🇦🇫😈

💣 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 have clearly got 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!

🚫 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.