🏆 Digital Freedom Contest

Prize Fund: Up to $200,000
Deadline: July 15, 23:59 Dubai time
Results: August 2026

📱 Telegram is launching its most ambitious contest for content creators.

The Task
Create a viral video about digital freedom, post it on one of these platforms — TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or X — and get 10,000+ authentic views.

Requirements and Conditions
– You must use at least some ideas and footage from @durov’s OFF keynote;
– You may add any other media and ideas to promote digital freedom;
– You may submit multiple videos across multiple platforms.

Evaluation Criteria

Videos we deem low-quality or suspect of having generated non-organic views will be excluded. All other qualifying videos will be eligible for a share of the prize fund.

Submissions
We will publish instructions on how to submit links to your videos on July 6 in this channel.

Good luck! 🤞

⛔️ 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.

-@Durov

⚠️ 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.

-@Durov