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[Privacy] [Private] New privacy option to not allow private messages from non-contacts.
Fabian Pastor, Oct 24, 2021 at 14:10, edited
OpenSuggestionGeneral

Like many have asked before (for different reasons) for years (even before we had this suggestions platform) and as you can see with other suggestions in this platform too:
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/1748
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/3417
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/10535
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/10533

There is a need by some people to be able to avoid private messages for non-contacts.

Why?: There are many reasons on why to add this feature.
As a social person i enjoy being inside Public Groups. It's amazing to be able to talk to other people from all around the world.
But it comes with a cost:
Users/Scammers/Spammers and Autommated Accouns that are (or not) inside public groups can annoy you in private.

  1. Users (mostly male) contact other users (mostly female) to annoy them and molest them in private.(sending dick pics and other nasty things)
    We have a big report button, yes, but it's not enough. It gets tedious to every day for months pressing that report button for many strangers.
    There would be no problem if it was just 1 or 2 every month... But it's way way more!!
    Your only option is 1) Resign and Accept it or 2) Leave any Public Group.
  2. Scammers contacting Users to do what they know best: Scam people. At least this ones don't target just a group.
    Same problem as above: Yeah, we have a report button but it gets tedious if you have to report every day a bunch of scammers.
  3. Automated accounts and Spammers contact you in private to send you advertisments of any kind (i even received ads from a Shoe Maker in Iran, i am from europe :shrug:).
    Same as before: You have a big red block and report button but: It's not enough!!
    Most of those automated accounts or spammers accounts are throw away accounts so the report button is useless. Yes that account will get a limitation but no one cares!
    They can create as many accounts they like.
  4. It's more! combine the options above!! You get bombarded every day from unknown Accounts just for making a social life inside Public Groups!!!!!
    That's an issue..

For some unclear reason Telegram decided to just ignore the issue. They added a bunch of options that are not enough.
For example there is a hidden privacy option to Archive and Silence new Private Messages from non-contact users.
It's a step forward but this option only appears if you litterally get bombarded with hundreds of unknown users...

Most of the people that ask for a way to disable Private Messages from non-contacts are females.
Making that option hidden until some unknown conditional is reached feels like Telegram is embracing all those Creeps to allow them to annoy those females in private.
Not letting anyone decide if they want to (or not) receive private messages just kills the spirit of Public Groups for some minorities.

To be fair: We already asked and made noise with this topic back in 2016 or 2017... Probably no one will give a f*** about this.
Telegram Team lives in a bubble for years, they see things from another prespective as a New User that starts with Telegram, enters it's first masive Public Group and then it gets countless messages from bad people.
And don't take me wrong... More than 80% of people are really nice human beings... But in a group of 10K users even if just the 10% are the worst it's enough to drive you crazy with private messages from strangers.

Other suggestions:
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/3417
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/10548/15
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/10548/20

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Onivia Jul 25
Clot
In my personal opinion, won't allowing people's to personal message you is a bad experience for newcomers. What instead can be done is transfer all messages from non contacts to a different folder
I see.
Е
Едік Aug 27
Fabian Pastor Aug 27
Едік
1 photo
Every day i receive a few crypto scam private messages from unknown accounts.
I really don't understand what the issue would be to allow me (us) to just give me(us) the option to allow or not non-contacts to contact me in private.
It's not like the world would end giving me the choice to decide.
Not sure why Telegram thinks it's better that they have the choice to decide who can or can't contact ME. Thank you Telegram.
ムゲン Aug 31
Telegram has become a very social messenger due to addition of stories. Add a feature like this and it’ll be a personal messenger for people who only wanna use it for personal messaging. 

TBH, I don’t care how social Telegram becomes in future but please give users the choice to let them decide what they want & how they want to use Telegram. (Personal messaging or Social messaging) Thats the best course of action in my eyes.
Overvault Sep 17
100% agree on this, most of my friends are sticking to Whatsapp for personal chats cause they use Telegram primarily for groups and channels and they regularly get their chat list flooded with spammers so they think Telegram use should be limited to "alternative" stuff, not as a primary messaging tool. Just add a separate chat requests menu
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