🚨 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.

🏳️ Gram Wallet in Telegram is ready and is now accessible to a select group of users.

🤩 We'll be gradually rolling it out to our billion+ users over the next couple of weeks.

⚡️ Thanks to the validators who approved the smart contract that powers it, future upgrades of the wallet won't require painful migrations.

This is just one of the innovations we've built to make non-custodial wallets usable ✨

💸 In just one month, Telegram has awarded over $2,222,000 to some of the brightest minds on our planet.

🎨 This week alone we distributed $222,000 among the winners of our two latest competitions — the Design Contest and the Digital Freedom Contest.

On top of that, over the past month we awarded prizes worth more than $2 million to the winners of the 2026 International Olympiads in Informatics and AI.

We're proud to support the best! 🎁

🤝 Telegram has become the sponsor of Codeforces — the largest competitive programming platform in the world.

⚡CodeForces organizes over 100 coding contests every year and has 4 million contestants signed up.

🌱 Since 2010, I've supported Codeforces through the companies I started.

🆙 But this year will be special. Its founder Mike wants to bring Codeforces to the next level — and we'll be happy to help him do that 🤝