Telegram has stolen my channel's username to sell it on auction
Today Pavel Durov just announced the launch of their dedicated platform to sell/buy premium Telegram usernames. Checking that list, I've searched my channel's username and it says is coming soon: https://fragment.com/?query=%40kissfm
Going back to my channel to make sure this username belongs to me (my channel), I've noticed that the channel was transformed into a private channel, without username!
So telegram just literally stole my channel's username to sell it! Durov, what you were saying about privacy and security in Telegram? You just dropped its level yourself!
P.S. check if your usernames still yours!
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84 comments
| 3 points
| on HN
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It comes off the back of him trying to fuck over users with NFT's of all things, which received something like 30K "thumbs down" emojis (to about 800 "thumbs up") before having the counter removed
I don't know why Durov can't just do what Discord does and offer Premium. Premium garnered a less than stellar reception, but comes with actual features that users might want (increased GIF cache, bigger file download limits etc)
> Until recently, 70% of all Telegram usernames had been reserved in inactive channels by cybersquatters from Iran. This created a graveyard of dead usernames that cluttered search results and prevented millions of Telegram users from selecting appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels.
I think they've just screwed up everything telegram was based on, no freedom, no privacy, no security!
wtf is happening with durov!?!?!
So now I think that yeah, Telegram should adopt E2E by default.
Another thing that would be lost with the switch to E2E is server-based search, but honestly I can live with that.
I still use Telegram to keep in touch with a load of family and friends but I have no faith in whatsoever any of their self-righteous privacy & security claims and comparisons with other messaging services. For a very long time now, evey update has focussed on adding moronic cutesy junk like animated emojis and stickers. So it's quite clear that their focus has moved away from being a private & secure messaging service and towards appealing to the TikTok generation.
That's fine. It's their project. They can do what they want with it and [as I said] I still find it useful. I just wish they wouldn't keep on trying to convince people it's a serious secure commmunication tool.
And I was mad at first but it was equally my fault for leaving my public group inactive for more than 3 months, which is probably why the username disappeared.
It's a real problem on other social media websites too. For example, a totally inactive account on GitHub claimed an org name and it has no repositories, no information, It's totally empty and I can do nothing about it. Not even report it so that GitHub can look into it and unfreeze the username.
This is gaslighting
https://t.me/durov/195
> Until recently, 70% of all Telegram usernames had been reserved in inactive channels by cybersquatters from Iran. This created a graveyard of dead usernames that cluttered search results and prevented millions of Telegram users from selecting appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels.
If the username that I would like to have is taken, I can pick another name that is not taken.
It is not unreasonable to take a 3 month break from a messenger app.
Search results don't have to prioritize inactive channels.
Just pulling the rug on people for money makes Telegram look very unreliable.
Compare this to how it works on reddit: people can request to take over a dead subreddit as a mod, but it requires that the subreddit has been dead for at least six months and they will try to contact the previous mod first and only transfer it to the requester if that fails. At no cost.
Obviously he's not only selling Iranian names.
That's what he did. Telling users it is their own fault that he had to take their names and sell them. You were causing issues, because you did not log in for three months.
Gaslighting involves presenting a false history of things that did not happen. There is real data here that there are a huge number of inactive accounts.
> The term may also be used to describe a person (a "gaslighter") who presents a false narrative to another group or person, thereby leading them to doubt their perceptions and become misled, disoriented or distressed.
A false narrative is not necessarily including a false history of things. He is spinning a false narrative by using facts, but presenting them in a way that is misleading. like a politician. He is inventing a problem ("dead accounts are a huge problem that is causing my valued users many issues") and presenting a solution for that new problem that is mainly benefitting himself. All social media platforms have a huge number of inactive accounts, but that's for some reason only an issue sometimes. For example when Elon Musk takes over Twitter. Generally these platforms welcome inactive accounts, because it is inflating their numbers. Now Durov wants more money and he is inventing a problem and pointing at the users as the culprit.
He is achieving two things with that:
1) He is gaslighting users into believing that it is their own fault that they lost their account name, because they have not logged in for three months, when stealing account names is actually just an arbitrary decision that he made.
2) He is incentivizing occasional users to log in more often, so they can keep their name. I guess he can then later use these numbers to sell ad space: "Unlike on other platforms, our users are much more engaged.
Durov has been funding it with his own savings for more than 8 years, which is great but a project as big as Telegram eventually needs more funding, especially when it's literally Messenger + Google Drive + Social Media + Privacy Respecting. It's hard to make money when the world runs on selling data and obviously, Telegram Premium has not been very successful.
I do not mind the auction of the usernames to be very honest as I understand why they're being auctioned in the first place.
Arbitrary or not, I'm a Telegram super-user, out of the 20 public groups and channels that I have, only one had its username take away and only because it was inactive. Could be a glitch, could be intentional but I do know that it's partly because of me that the channel looked like a dead one.
At the free level I could see unmodified forks and anything marked private disappearing over time, then culling empty accounts. If I created an account, forked a project, and then left, how many months would need to pass before I'd be surprised that my account hadn't been recycled without my active consent?
Also archival purposes exist, especially for code repos.
I'll just have to be better at uploading so this hopefully won't happen again.
It’s too cumbersome for average folks.
Only solution is something like how Farcaster does it where you at least get to keep your public key the same and usernames are optional.
https://github.com/farcasterxyz/protocol#3-identity
Or go the urbit route and make the addresses totally user owned.
If email was better designed, it would not allow these situations to happen. For example, if server operators didn't own your account, there would be no problem.
It is a protocol issue.
https://t.me/durov/195
However, Aaron Swartz is not paying for reddit servers anymore, can I have u/AaronSw then? Has been inactive for 10 years.
One common case where this occurred is when users used a channel as a "bio" or "blog", and posted to the channel infrequently to update it.
The problem is just that Telegram still advertises itself, and people expect it to be a messaging app.
That said, how mad can you be about some username that you'd sign up for an extra account just to complain?
Telegram allows editing post, some of those"stolen usernames" were of channels that were active; i.e. posts were edited, and links were replaced, comments were enabled so channel masters can keep connected with their audience.
Those channels were also compensating for the absence of advanced bio, status, and as introduction methods where their links were posted on the profiles' "about me" section.
Those channels, as many of Telegram users who were affected say that they did nothing wrong, their channels, though have no new posts, were actually "active and alive", and that their only fault was that they were using some Telegram features that Telegram itself did not respect.