Bugs and Suggestions

More details about the @spambot part: every account registered by email could be automatically marked as spam, and thus not be able to initiate conversations with other users. Email-only accounts would also be ineligible to have this restriction lifted for some time period, say 3 months, and lifting the restriction could require some additional effort, such as an automated Turing test (but not reCAPTCHAv3, because eew Google).

... Dec 30, 2020

I want to add that Signal is already working on removing phone numbers: https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1280276483894677504

Emilia Dec 30, 2020

...

Signal is working on username, but registration still requires phone number (as telegram). Wire allows email registration while element (matrix) allow anonymous ID registration.

Emilia

Signal is working on removing the phone number from sign up

Deleted Account Dec 30, 2020

I strongly disagree. Telegram is a messaging app and just like the other messaging apps it requires a phone number to register. Your suggestion would require modifying completely how Telegram works.

Also, allowing people to register just by using their mail would facilitate scammers & spammers and will lead to a general chaos as well. Talking about your proposal regarding @SpamBot, that would add so much more work for the moderators. The captcha thing would never be implemented, using 3rd parties captchas would be a big privacy concern and the Telegram team is certainly not going to create its own captcha. The 3-months period to lift the restrictions makes no sense, why the hell should I wait 3 months after signing up?

The main reason that made you make this feature suggestion is "people not wanting to share their identity with intolerant parents"... A silent signup feature was suggested, you should check it out: https://bugs.telegram.org/c/82

Deleted Account

> Telegram is a messaging app and just like the other messaging apps it requires a phone number to register

Wire, Matrix, Threema, or Session are messaging app/services and do not require phone number. Signal is going to remove phone number soon

> Also, allowing people to register just by using their mail would
facilitate scammers & spammers and will lead to a general chaos as
well.

Regarding spammers, I think that it depends. We can also think of a solution where accounts created by e-mail aren't able to write at all, but they can read. So they technically can't spam.

> The 3-months period to lift the restrictions makes no sense, why the hell should I wait 3 months after signing up?

You can sign up and read only. After a certain period of time (3 month, 2 years, who knows) you can try to solve an automatic turing test, if you pass it you can ask to Telegram Support Force volunteers to verify that you are human and want to be unlocked from the spammed position. While you are marked as a spammed account, you can't write to non-contact people, but you can be contacted and you can reply. If this is still not enough for you, we can even think of a solution where you won't ever be able to have the spam mark lifted, so this phase is permenant. I'm also ok to that.

> The main reason that made you make this feature suggestion is
"people
not wanting to share their identity with intolerant parents"... A silent
signup feature was suggested, you should check it out:
https://bugs.telegram.org/c/82

No, that's what the person I asked to share my suggestion added. I thank
him/her for that, but that's not what I meant. The reason I want this
suggestion implemented is simple: not even Telegram should know who I
am. Phone numbers, here in Italy, are linked to real identity, by law.
I'm searching for a service that provides privacy and anonimity, and
Telegram can be that service, it just need to provide an alternative
method to sign up for very privacy-focused users, like other messaging
apps provide

Thank you for your comment, I'm available to further discuss this and
improve the suggestion together. Bye 👋

The fact that other messaging apps are adding the possibility to sign up just by using an email address doesn't mean that Telegram should follow the same path.

Having a read-only period after signing up still makes no sense to me. As mentioned in the FAQ, Telegram wants to be a super-fast and simple messaging app; limiting people to read-only for months or years just because they signed up using an email would just complicate things.

You can already read messages from public groups & channels using the official website (for example: https://t.me/s/telegram/3) without a Telegram account.

The turing test would require a massive work from Telegram developers (and also from volunteers). In addition, TSF volunteers are not qualified to deal with problems regarding user restrictions — there is already @SpamBot for that.

"not even Telegram should know who I am." — Telegram does not know who you are and never will. Phone numbers are used as an unique identifier and Telegram can't access the data mobile companies have about that phone number.

If you fear about being found or recognized using your phone numbers, just turn on your privacy settings ("Who can see my phone number?" and "Who can find me by my number?").

Unlike emails, there is a very limited amount of phone numbers all over the world. On the other hand, there are dozens of thousands of free email providers, while phone numbers are hard to get for free.

Additionally, Telegram has never shared a single byte of data to third parties or governments. Unless you are a terrorist, you should not worry about that.

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