Boost Channels With Gifted Telegram Premium

Users who received Telegram Premium as a gift now can boost their favorite channel.

Before the update, this feature required purchase of the subscription through Google Play, App Store, or PremiumBot.

#boosts

Bot API was updated to version 6.9

What's new:
• Added the new administrator privileges can_post_stories, can_edit_stories and can_delete_stories to the classes ChatMemberAdministrator and ChatAdministratorRights.
• Added the parameters can_post_stories, can_edit_stories and can_delete_stories to the method promoteChatMember. Currently, bots have no use for these privileges besides assigning them to other administrators.
• Added the ability to set any header color using the setHeaderColor method.
• Added the field CloudStorage and the methods requestWriteAccess, requestContact to the class WebApp.
• Added the Web App events writeAccessRequested, contactRequested.
• Added the fields from_request and from_attachment_menu to the class WriteAccessAllowed.
• Added the fields added_to_attachment_menu, allows_write_to_pm to the class WebAppUser.

See the full changelog for details on the official website.

#update #BotAPI

Contest to create Telegram mini-apps

Telegram is launching a new contest to create mini-apps (a new name for web bots) similar to the samples presented - @DurgerKingBot and @wallet.

Contest task:

You need to create any useful mini-app for Telegram and publish its client and server code on GitHub. Such an app should be simple and functional, but include at least one fully functional example Mini App.


All requirements for participants, criteria for evaluating contest submissions, as well as information about accepting applications are provided in the @contest channel.

Prize fund: $50 000.
Deadline: 23:59 on October 9th Dubai time (UTC+4).
Who can participate: everyone.
Results to be announced: October 31st, 2023

#contest

Number of Boosts for Obtaining A New Level on Channels Has Been Reduced

Now, to get the next level, the channel needs a number of boosts equal to 0.1% (1/1000 part) of the total number of its subscribers.

Let us remind you that previously this required 0.4% (1/250) of the total amount of subscribers.

#boosts #stories

Telegram WebK has been updated to version 1.9.6

👏 What's new:
• Almost all functions related to stories are available to users, all will come later, such as stories for channels and stickers with reactions.
• Administrators of groups and channels can now fully manage their communities. The “Statistics” and “Recent Actions” sections will be added later.
• The reaction panel has been completely redesigned. Now it's easier to choose a reaction from a custom emoji pack!
• Added support for mini-apps.
• Dozens of bugs have been fixed.

https://web.telegram.org/k/

#WebK #update

Telegram Statistics Failures

Chat and channel administrators report that statistics are not loading. Instead of the usual graphs and data, the app shows the message "Loading stats", but the data itself does not appear even after a long wait. The problem is of a mass character.

Due to this, information about the number of Premium users, as well as the actual list of those who boosted for the channel, may also be unavailable.

//Updated on 10/01/2023
Statistics is loading successfully.

#outages #stats

Channel Stories, Levels, and Boosts FAQ

What are boosts in Telegram? How do they work? What's different about channel stories? How can you use boost links?

You can find answers to these questions and many more in our article, written for both channel owners and readers:
https://tginfo.me/boosts-and-channel-stories-en/

#FAQ #stories #boosts

Be careful if asked to change your account info

If you were offered to change your account settings, such as bio, name, or profile photo, in return for premium subscription, immediately refuse it.

Telegram continues to promptly delete accounts that seek to look like official ones — for example, if an account has the Telegram logo as their profile photo, or the support account phone number in their bio, it might get deleted.

There is an increased number of reports regarding this issue.

In the past, Telegram has already deleted accounts with names or usernames that had the words “Saved Messages” or “Telegram” in them.

UPD. 17:15 UTC
Telegram is reverting account deletions caused by this incident.

Telegram Contest for Machine Learning

The Telegram team announced a new contest for ML engineers to develop a library for programming language classification and code fragments markup according to the detected language.

Contest task

Implement a library that detects the programming and markup language of code snippets from message text. You can use any publicly available data to train your solution.

The solutions will be tested on code snippets from public Telegram chats, which may contain anything besides valid code.

General info about this competition is available on @contest and the contests website. Further submission instructions will be announced there closer to the deadline.

• Prize fund: $40,000 – from which the 1st place winner will receive $15,000 if any submissions qualify for 1st place.
• Deadline: 23:59 on October 15th (Dubai time)
• Who can participate: Everyone
• Results: October 29th, 2023

#contest

Programming Language Classifier by Telegram

Today Telegram announced a new contest to create a library for programming language detection using Machine Learning algorithms. Almost simultaneously, Telegram Desktop repository was updated to add hints on the ongoing work to add programming language syntax highlighting. The @tginfo team connects these events and speculates that Telegram is probably working on automatic code highlighting in messages.

There are existing libraries for automatic programming language detection, but all of them are making mistakes often enough.

Such highlighting is not really needed in all messages, and attempts to do it automatically adds unpredictability, which not everyone will be happy about: “Will Telegram decide to mistakenly highlight this segment of monospace text?” or “Will the programming language be detected correctly?”

The @tginfo editors hope the messenger will give choice to either use the automatic language detection or not. Besides that, we're curious about the quality of the solutions that will be developed by the ML engineers in a 10 day deadline set by the contest.

The Telegram API has an option to declare the programming language for a code block since its early days, but almost none of the official apps implement that in the UI, with the exception of Telegram WebA.

In Telegram WebA you can declare a code block with a specified programming language for syntax highlighting the following way:

```js
console.log(123 + "Text");
```

For example, in Nekogram, an unofficial Telegram client for Android, you can create a monospace fragment by either “Mono” or “Code” formats. The “Code” option allows to manually select appropriate language for syntax highlighting while also giving you an option to not use highlighting at all.

Syntax highlighting works only in Telegram WebA and some unofficial apps.

Do you think you need automatic programming language detection for syntax highlighting, or you'd prefer doing it manually?

Telegram Increased Cooldown Time to Reactivate Stealth Mode in Stories

According to the changes in Telegram's configuration files, tracked by @tgcrawl, the minimal time interval between reactivations of Stealth mode for stories was increased from one hour to three hours.

The countdown starts from the moment the user taps the button to activate the mode. Because of this, after the Stealth mode expires, you will have to wait for at least 2 hours and 35 minutes before you will be able to activate it again.

The Stealth mode was introduced by Telegram in August and is available only to Telegram Premium subscribers. When activated, it hides you from the views list in stories you viewed for the first time in last 5 minutes, and continues to hide you from the viewers list during next 25 minutes.

It's important to remember that if you leave a reaction or a reply under a story, the story author will see your name even if you have Stealth mode active.

#stories

Official Hebrew support in Telegram

Pavel Durov announced that “hundreds of thousands” of users are signing up for Telegram from Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“In addition to Arabic, we’ve just added support for Hebrew in the Telegram UI. Everyone affected should have reliable access to news and private communication in these dire times,” Durov added

Telegram is Working on Telegram Premium Giveaways

Users found mentions of new features in Telegram for macOS lines, analyzed by @tgcrawl:

• Premium giveaways
• An option to gift Telegram Premium using a link

From the mentions in the app's code, it's not yet clear exactly how such giveaways and links are supposed to work.

Lines which hint at future features

• "This link allows you to activate a Telegram Premium subscription."

The line above was not automatically detected, but @tgcrawl's developer confirmed its recent appearance in the app after manually checking it.

• File name "Icon_Giveaway_Random"

• File name "Icon_Giveaway_Specific"

#Premium

Telegram Info VPN: New Token, Improved Stability, and Multi-fold Speed Increase

We are delighted to introduce you to the latest version of Telegram Info VPN, which includes several new features:

• New $SHILLD Token
The VPN now supports the $SHILLD token based on the Ethereum blockchain. When paying with this token, purchasing our VPN and extending subscription packages are 30% cheaper than with other methods.

Using $SHILLD, you can always verify a completed payment or simply check its status; you won't face any issues even if the country starts actively fighting against VPN services, and payment providers refuse to cooperate with them. Moreover, the token uses Ethereum's time-tested infrastructure.

• Shadowsocks Protocol Update
The new protocol ensures a smoother connection to servers without disruptions during conversations on Telegram and WhatsApp. In addition, the speed of loading and processing media content on social networks has noticeably increased.

• Migration to Modern Dedicated Servers
Thanks to the transition to new dedicated servers with a bandwidth capacity of up to 10 Gbit/s and the implementation of a new traffic balancing system, our team has significantly optimized the channel speed.

• Bot Interface Improvements
Our bot now features a "Show Key" button that allows you to see and copy the VPN access key (SS KEY) for connecting through the Outline app.

Thanks to your feedback and the hard work of the Telegram Info VPN team, we have made more than 30 fixes and improvements to the service code, striving to provide you with the best user experience!

You can ask questions about our VPN and discuss the update in the dedicated chat.

Connect: @tginfovpn_bot

#VPN

Telegram Is Obligated to Assign a Representative in the EU

“Telegram is not a very large online platform, designated as such, and therefore DSA applies to Telegram as of the 17th of February 2024, this is the date when they will indeed, by which they need indeed to nominate a legal representative”, — Johannes Bahrke stated in response to a question from Oliver Grimm, a correspondent from an Austrian newspaper Die Presse. Oliver is concerned by violence, hate speech, and disinformation content found on Telegram and TikTok.

If a platform doesn't comply with the Act in time, the European Commission may fine it with up to 6% of its annual turnover. In extreme cases, it can even ban the platform in the EU.

This requirement is a part of EU's Digital Services Act, which was already enforced for large social media this August. The law improves the regulation of social networks and search engines in instances where users post illegal content. The Act requires platforms to combat unlawful content and hate speech, while also protects platforms from liability if they moderate the content responsibly.

The DSA doesn't force the platforms to remove unwanted content automatically, but demands the social networks to properly moderate it by any possible means and report their methods and results back to the government.

Telegram Statistics Outages

Our followers report that the stats were unstable for the last couple of days.

Sometimes the stats screen keeps loading indefinitely, and sometimes it opens, but displays incorrect or incomplete data: for example, counters for new and leaving subscribers for the last 24 hours show zeros instead of actual figures.

In recent months stats failures have become almost commonplace for administrators: long-lasting outages in the statistics engine were observed on the 20th of July and on the 30th of September

#outages #stats

Telegram App Icon Competition

Telegram has organized a new competition for artists to draw new icons for Telegram applications for Android and iOS. The best icons can subsequently be offered to users in addition to the sets that are currently presented in both applications by default.

Contest Task

Participants are required to create at least 1 icon and adapt it for Android and iOS. Works containing more than 1 icon are accepted for participation, provided that each of them has a different theme.

Each of the icons should be based on the basic shape of the Telegram logo. Contestants may use any scenes or characters, except those materials that are protected by copyright.

The use of official sets of Telegram stickers and emojis is allowed only as references (you can adapt characters to create icons based on them). The use of AI generative is strictly prohibited.

Guidelines for creating app icons, criteria for judging entries, and submission details are provided in the @designers channel.

• Prize fund: $10,000.
• Deadline: until October 19, 23:59 Dubai time (UTC+4).
• Who can participate: everyone.
• Results: October 26, 2023.

#contests

Mentions of Telegram Premium Giveaways Functionality on Fragment

@tginfo noticed Telegram Premium giveaways functionality added to Fragment.com's codebase. The change was detected thanks to @tgcrawl's automated analysis. Earlier we've already reported about this feature surfacing in Telegram for macOS localization files.

The Fragment platform is considered to be Telegram's partner, designated to provide an option to buy Telegram's Premium subscription, usernames, and anonymous numbers using TON cryptocurrency. All the services can be paid for using QR codes, which are supposed to be scanned in the Tonkeeper wallet.

Other noteworthy mentions in the code
• Ability to specify the number of subscriptions.
• Ability to specify the number of months — probably for Premium duration.
• There's a possible fee for the giveaway functionality.
• You can find Premium recipients using search.
• The UI has mentions for boosts, but their context is unclear.

It's important to keep in mind that the provided info is a set of assumptions based off the Fragment's code that surfaced, so the functionality may be significantly different on its release. At the moment of writing, the mentioned code was already removed.

#Fragment #boosts #Premium

Results of The Competition for Redesign of Telegram for Android

The $30,000 prize pool was shared by 26 of the 89 designers who participated in the competition.

“The contestants brought several solid concepts and intriguing ideas to life – though even the top entries can’t be utilized without further polishing and refinements.”, this is how representatives of the Telegram team commented on the results of the competition.

Let us recall that the task of this competition was to create a detailed concept for the redesign of Telegram for Android. This concept should reflect the core essence of the application and its lightweight, and also improve the visual aesthetics with updated interface elements.

More information about the winners and their awards can be viewed in the @designers channel.

#contest

Telegram Has Increased The Maximum Number of Chat Folders for Premium Users

Telegram Premium subscribers can now add up to 30 folders.

Previously, the number of folders for Premium users was limited to twenty. For free users, the limit has not changed - 10 folders.

The new limit is already applied on the server side, as detected by @tgcrawl, and does not require an application update.

#limits