Today's update adds Video Ca... (ah, no, not yet) Profile Videos, improved People Nearby features, 2 GB file uploads and much more.

Preview media from mini-thumbnails in your chat list and notifications, view detailed statistics for large groups, and send over 20 new animated emoji like ⚽️, 🙊 and 😱.

Android users can now crop and rotate videos, and the music player was redesigned with a new layout and icons.

Read our latest blog post to learn about all the new features (including multi-account support for Telegram Desktop):
https://telegram.org/blog/profile-videos-people-nearby-and-more

Telegram is 7 years old today – and we have a present for you. Yes, it's Video Calls. 🎁

Enjoy the update while we go back to doing the three most important things: adding new features, standing up for what we believe in and animating emoji.

Read more on our blog:
https://telegram.org/blog/video-calls

Today’s update adds filters to global search, a new setting to make group admins anonymous, and channel comments to start a conversation in your community.

New filters for media type, date and source are available in Global Search.

Admins can now become invisible in the list of members. Messages from these anonymous admins show no trace of their personal account and instead are signed with the name of the group.

Channels with a discussion group now have a comments button under their posts. You can try it here: @durov.

Read our latest blog post for more info on all these features and more, including a host of new animations and tweaks for Android.
https://telegram.org/blog/filters-anonymous-admins-comments

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Here we announce Telegram coding contests in Android Java, iOS Swift, JS, C/C++. Discussion: @contests
https://t.me/contest

Here we announce Telegram coding contests in Android Java, iOS Swift, JS, C/C++. Discussion: @contests
https://t.me/contest

Anonymous_Bot:
Here we announce Telegram coding contests in Android Java, iOS Swift, JS, C/C++. Discussion: @contests
https://t.me/contest

Upcoming Telegram contests in 2021

🏆 2021 iOS Interface Animation Contest – January 15
🏆 2021 Android Interface Contest – January 30
🏆 2021 Data Clustering Contest – January 30
🏆Audio and Video Stream Processing for Calls – February 15

🏆2021 Animated Sticker Contest – March 1
🏆 GIF Animation Contest – March 15

The total prize fund for Telegram contests in 2021 is expected to reach $1,000,000.

Additional details about each of the contests will be published on this channel. You can already sign up for participation using @ContestBot.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

https://t.me/s/botman/@contest/198

In the first week of January, Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly active users. After that it kept growing: 25 million new users joined Telegram in the last 72 hours alone. These new users came from across the globe – 38% from Asia, 27% from Europe, 21% from Latin America and 8% from MENA.

This is a significant increase compared to last year, when 1.5M new users signed up every day. We've had surges of downloads before, throughout our 7-year history of protecting user privacy. But this time is different.

People no longer want to exchange their privacy for free services. They no longer want to be held hostage by tech monopolies that seem to think they can get away with anything as long as their apps have a critical mass of users.

With half a billion active users and accelerating growth, Telegram has become the largest refuge for those seeking a communication platform committed to privacy and security. We take this responsibility very seriously. We won’t let you down.

Those of you who have used Telegram for the last several years know we’ve been consistent both when it comes to defending private data and to improving our apps. For those of you who just joined and are wondering what Telegram stands for, I’d like to quote my post from 2018:

You – our users – have been and will always be our only priority. Unlike other popular apps, Telegram doesn’t have shareholders or advertisers to report to. We don’t do deals with marketers, data miners or government agencies. Since the day we launched in August 2013 we haven’t disclosed a single byte of our users' private data to third parties.

We operate this way because we don’t regard Telegram as an organization or an app. For us, Telegram is an idea; it is the idea that everyone on this planet has a right to be free.