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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Way to much text for me. I would say, maybe after some amount of blocked/reported users the option to automatically mute&archive should appear. Let's say for example if 10 users were blocked in the past 90 days or if 30 users were blocked in total since registration
Another but similar suggestion: First message sent by stranger can only be text-based. Then if you choose to engage with them, i.e. reply, then the capability to send you pictures/videos is unlocked for them. That should screen off some people because it’s more work for them. And you never have to add anyone to your contacts.
Just throwing ideas out there…
Sen
Or keyword feature that allows users to input custom keywords, as language and pickup lines for sexting evolves, that auto sends these messages to a spam folder for review. Also a select all and/or multiple message selection feature that has the option to report all as spam, harassment, etc.
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It is very important that Telegram allows the user to choose this privacy setting when registering, along with the one that the app does not notify the rest of the contacts that they have joined Telegram.
Only thing is, if users could choose whether to receive messages from non-contacts, they would likely have it off, which would defeat Telegram's purpose of freely reaching anyone.
Privacy is about keeping what you want to keep in your bubble in your bubble. When people reach out to you, they have not touched your bubble in any way - you still retain the decision of whether to talk to them or ignore. You retain the choice of how to react.
Apps that prevent Direct messages from strangers from reaching you: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Line, Viber, Discord, We Chat... 🙄
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Another very simple and important option would be to prevent members from accessing the profiles of other members to write to them (they could only see a kind of preview). I also find it very useful to be able to choose privacy options for the username. The username is not only used to be mentioned in groups. Many people only use it to give it to another and be contacted on Telegram without giving their phone number. Those people risk being contacted because of their username, and it's a nuisance.
Log in here to report bugs or suggest features. Please enter your phone number in the international format and we will send a confirmation message to your account via Telegram.
Another but similar suggestion: First message sent by stranger can only be text-based. Then if you choose to engage with them, i.e. reply, then the capability to send you pictures/videos is unlocked for them. That should screen off some people because it’s more work for them. And you never have to add anyone to your contacts.
Just throwing ideas out there…