Du Rove's Channel

2021-12-14 17:40:11 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 Open / Comment

2021-11-18 19:14:05 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. Open / Comment

2021-10-10 21:12:16 As I am turning 37, I put together a list of 3 undervalued and 7 overvalued things in life.

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.

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. Open / Comment

2021-10-05 19:31:10 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. Open / Comment

2021-09-28 22:13:31 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. Open / Comment

2021-09-25 23:21:12 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:

https://telegra.ph/Why-Telegram-had-to-follow-Apple-and-Google-when-they-suspended-a-voting-app-09-25 Open / Comment

2021-09-20 00:05:28 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. Open / Comment

2021-09-04 18:59:22 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. Open / Comment

2021-08-30 19:00:55 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? Open / Comment

2021-08-14 19:58:07 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 Open / Comment