📰 Pavel Durov gave an interview to the french newspaper LePoint

You can read the full interview for free in English bellow:
https://telegra.ph/FBI-Russia-DGSE-Macron-The-Confessions-of-Pavel-Durov-06-18

(Source) #lepoint

📢 Telegram will display Ads on videos

Nekogram noticed the new Android Beta code has an implementation of Ads on videos. You can check the code in the link bellow:
https://github.com/TGAndroid-Decompiled/TGAndroid-Beta/blob/fbf111b1bda7b08d4c1974dba340f76e2cfa13a7/sources/org/telegram/messenger/video/VideoAds.java

➡️Where the Ads will appear?
- In the bottom of a running video.
- Currently they can be displayed in any dialog (group/channel/private) but Telegram servers can set it so they only appear in certain channels.
- The video will not stop, the ad will appear in the bottom of the screen of a running video (just like YouTube overlay Ads)

➡️How will they look like?
- Ads will use Telegram Bulletin system (like "Message deleted", etc.)
- The ads appear as banner-style notifications at the bottom of the screen, similar to how other Telegram notifications are displayed.
- Ads slide up from the bottom and remain visible for the specified duration.
- Ads will not interrupt the video, the video will keep playing when the Ad appear at the bottom of the screen just like YouTube overlay Ads
- User can dismiss an Ad that that was already half displayed

➡️How will Telegram control when Ads appear?
- Ads will show up at the middle of the video. Telegram server can choose how long after the video starts the Ad will appear.
- After seeing an Ad, the user will remain some minutes without seeing another Ad. Telegram server can choose how long.

➡️Example: Telegram send an Ad that must be displayed for 60 seconds:
- User will see the Ad bellow the video and a 30 seconds circular countdown.
- If the user try to dismiss the Ad before 30 seconds, a premium upgrade prompt will appear.
- After 30 seconds the user can dismiss the Ad.
- If the user do not dismiss the Ad, it will automatically dismiss itself after 60 seconds.
- The exact minimum display time is controlled by Telegram's servers and may vary per Ad.

⚠️ This feature was not implemented yet. Everything in this message is a speculation based on Telegram for Android Beta code and may change before the release! #tgvidads

❓ What is Durov doing with Telegram?

He lost thousands of dollars and the developers lost time to release checklists that will not be used by anyone, for the simple reason that they are only available to premium users. Trannoscriptions, translations, higher limits, downloads and cosmetic features, are the kind of features that will increase premium numbers. Checklists (just like tags in saved messages) are not the kind of features that will increase the number of premium users.

Worse, in addition to not being able to create checklists, non-premium users cannot even mark a task as done... Which would be the minimum requirement for this feature to be used inside a messenger.

I know that Telegram needs to make money and charging Premium for cosmetic features (like custom emojis and animated photos), server-side features (like higher limits) or features that are not available in other apps (like translations) seems fine to me. Charging for NFT gifts is excellent, it increases the app's profit, creates a resales ecosystem and does not reduce the number of useful functions for the average non-paying user. I have premium myself and I do not intend to stop having it.

But Telegram as a whole would improve if the following functions were made available to non-premium users:
▶️1) Business features such as address, opening hours and quick replies (Whatsapp has them for free and it would bring small businesses to Telegram)
▶️2) Local audio trannoscriptions (it is an accessibility feature for deaf people that Whatsapp has for free and does not consume server resources)
▶️3) Checklists (at least the option to mark them as done so they don't become useless)
▶️4) Tags in saved messages (just like checklists, it is not the feature that will raise Premium numbers)

I hope Durov has not surrounded himself with people who treat all his decisions as brilliant and do not suggest obvious improvements. Unfortunately users no longer see Telegram as a privacy-focused messenger but they continue to use it for its user-friendly interface and high number of features. Telegram cannot afford to lose basic features by making them premium-only.

#shame

On the Telegram test server, an official bot (mini app) for age verification using facial scanning has been found (no, documents are not required).
It’s likely that in the future, Telegram will introduce age verification for certain features. We’ll see later 🤨

By the way, passing verification with a photo isn’t possible, as it checks for a real person.

@telelakel

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🧪Pavel Durov said he was poisoned in 2018

In an interview to Lex Fridman, Pavel Durov has claimed that he survived a poisoning attempt in the spring of 2018, but chose not to reveal the incident until now to focus on business priorities.

“This is something I never talked about publicly because I didn’t want people to freak out.”

Durov didn’t speculate about why he may have been poisoned, though the timing of the alleged incident coincides with the Russian authorities’ ban and attempted blocking of Telegram. He mentioned that he didn’t tell anybody about the incident because he “didn’t want people to freak out” at a time when he was pursuing investors for the TON project.

In his interview, Durov said he experienced intense pain, progressive loss of vision and hearing, extreme difficulty breathing and overwhelming weakness.

Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist who investigated the 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Britain and the 2020 poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny for the Bellingcat open-source investigative outlet, said the symptoms described by Durov are consistent with nerve-agent poisoning.

🧐But not everyone believes in Durov

Writing on X, Russian journalist Dmitry Kolezev laid out questions about the incident:

So, someone tried to poison him, and he just decided not to tell anyone? Didn’t even go to the police? No investigation? And he chose not to tell his colleagues at the company because he didn’t want to scare them? Did he at least go to the hospital? He says he stayed home for two weeks, but there’s no mention of doctors, hospitals, or the police in his account.
And now he decides to go public with this story, just when he’s being accused of possibly cooperating with the FSB and the Russian authorities?

He also pointed to the fact that Durov continued traveling to Russia in the years that followed.

Political analyst Fedor Krasheninnikov was also skeptical.

I don’t believe Pavel Durov was poisoned. The symptoms he describes sound like a detailed retelling of what [late opposition politician Alexey] Navalny said he experienced. But there’s a key difference:
Navalny, who actually survived a Novichok poisoning and also lost consciousness at some point, ended up in a hospital, where doctors worked to save him.

Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist, called on Durov to reveal more details about his poisoning attempt “to allow us to look into what happened to you — and who was behind it.”

📰 Pavel Durov full interview to Lex Fridman.

OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
3:07 - Philosophy of freedom
6:15 - No alcohol
14:20 - No phone
20:16 - Discipline
41:28 - Telegram: Lean philosophy, privacy, and geopolitics
56:50 - Arrest in France
1:13:01 - Romanian elections
1:23:56 - Power and corruption
1:33:29 - Intense education
1:45:29 - Nikolai Durov
1:49:58 - Programming and video games
1:54:11 - VK origins & engineering
2:11:24 - Hiring a great team
2:20:40 - Telegram engineering & design
2:39:42 - Encryption
2:44:39 - Open source
2:49:26 - Edward Snowden
2:51:58 - Intelligence agencies
2:53:10 - Iran and Russia government pressure
2:56:19 - Apple
3:03:16 - Poisoning
3:35:31 - Money
3:44:23 - TON
3:54:13 - Bitcoin
3:57:12 - Two chairs dilemma
4:03:52 - Children
4:15:02 - Father
4:19:33 - Quantum immortality
4:26:05 - Kafka

(Source)