frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Ask HN: What's the best hackable smart TV?

45•xrd•4d ago•45 comments

How can newbies make proper use of AI and still be good developers?

4•Doublentender•1h ago•1 comments

Lost all my sites overnight: Vercel terminated my account without notice

2•hikerell•2h ago•4 comments

Ask HN: How are founders finding investors without warm intros in 2025?

2•paulwilsonn•4h ago•4 comments

Looking for 5 B2C startups or agencies to pilot next-gen product discovery

2•AdityaBuilds•6h ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Build Your Own LLM?

5•retube•7h ago•7 comments

Ask HN: Does anyone want to take on the payment processing networks with me?

10•ziyadparekh•22h ago•8 comments

Ask HN: What do you think of web-components?

4•jerawaj740•1h ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Anyone using Cursor/Claude Code for non-coding workflows?

4•opuslabs•1d ago•2 comments

Ask HN: Most effective way to reduce excessive digital media consumption?

14•SeanAnderson•1d ago•35 comments

Ask HN: How to find a non-technical co-founder/sales person?

8•darkhorse13•1d ago•12 comments

GitHub Actions seem to be down

8•arbol•1d ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Why aren't wet labs more automated?

5•andrewrn•1d ago•7 comments

Ask HN: Any advice on pivoting out of VC-backed tech?

87•AbstractH24•4d ago•60 comments

Ask HN: Low entry barrier hobby that can potentially generate income?

8•shivajikobardan•1d ago•13 comments

Ask HN: Great Firewall in Iran?

10•minebreaker•2d ago•13 comments

Ask HN: Why is software quality collapsing?

70•razoorka•6d ago•112 comments

Ask HN: Do you roll your own agent or use a framework?

11•break_the_bank•3d ago•7 comments

Ask HN: Why did COM/SOAP/other protocols fail?

26•smj-edison•1w ago•56 comments

Ask HN: What do you wish existed? (October 2025)

13•pwlm•3d ago•19 comments

From Docker Desktop (300% CPU) to Colima and Portainer (0.2%) on macOS

11•muthuishere•4d ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Career Burnout Looking for Options

21•ultrasounder•3d ago•26 comments

You've reached the end!

Open in hackernews

Telegram's founder Pavel Durov sends alarmist message to all Telegram users

26•skerit•3h ago
Out of nowhere I noticed a "warning" at the top of my Telegram chat list, it said:

"End of free internet: The free internet is turning into a tool of control"

When I clicked on it, I got transported into Pavel Durov's telegram group. Full of ramblings, NFT crap, and now a new message that read:

> I’m turning 41, but I don’t feel like celebrating. > > Our generation is running out of time to save the free Internet built for us by our fathers. > > What was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control. > > Once-free countries are introducing dystopian measures such as digital IDs (UK), online age checks (Australia), and mass scanning of private messages (EU). > > Germany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet. The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets. France is criminally investigating tech leaders who defend freedom and privacy. > > A dark, dystopian world is approaching fast — while we’re asleep. Our generation risks going down in history as the last one that had freedoms — and allowed them to be taken away. > > We’ve been fed a lie. > > We’ve been made to believe that the greatest fight of our generation is to destroy everything our forefathers left us: tradition, privacy, sovereignty, the free market, and free speech. > > By betraying the legacy of our ancestors, we’ve set ourselves on a path toward self-destruction — moral, intellectual, economic, and ultimately biological. > > So no, I’m not going to celebrate today. I’m running out of time. We are running out of time.

I think I'll be looking for yet another messaging service after this.

Comments

billy99k•3h ago
The US government colluded with sites like Twitter and Facebook to not only censor Americans, but actually change the outcome of elections by silencing the voices of politicians.

These alarmist messages only seem to come out only when you think you will be affected. When the people you don't care about are silenced, it's not only business as usual, but gas lighting articles are written about how it's not happening.

Ignoring these issues 4 years ago led to what we have today. Many just don't care to fight it any longer because they know this is only about politics and not about freedom. it's the activist way.

pants2•3h ago
For what it’s worth I haven’t seen this warning / message on my Telegram
teekert•2h ago
Me neither, but this post came by recently: [0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45535384

palmfacehn•3h ago
I always found it strange that I needed to:

1) Provide a phone number

2) Install a mobile app

3) Activate Google Play Services

...All to create an account for this "private" messaging service. After which I needed to disable location sharing and public display of a phone number I used. A recent change now gives the country of the sim I used when registering if I DM someone new.

Other than that, his message does speak to valid concerns. However, I'm not sure why Telegram needed so much personal data for sending private messages.

rchaud•2h ago
The phone number requirement can be circumvented by paying with crypto. At least it could back when I tried it in 2020.
protimewaster•2h ago
Do you mean just buying a phone number with crypto or is there an option to just pay Telegram in lieu of using a phone number?
rchaud•1h ago
The latter.
ahofmann•2h ago
Earlier discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45535384
bn-l•2h ago
The message was good and timely. Let go your grip on those pearls.
jackstraw42•2h ago
> I think I'll be looking for yet another messaging service after this.

You should always be doing this on a regular basis if there's any question marks around your current solution, with Telegram I have a few of those.

ixxie•2h ago
Didn't get this message.

Are you sure this isn't spam and that its actually coming from Durov?

sirfz•2h ago
it's 100% from Durov, I got it [0]

[0] https://t.me/durov/452

varjag•2h ago
Not sure which tradition of his ancestors he is alluding to.
teekert•2h ago
Was recently posted on X and discussed here on HN: [0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45535384

panki27•2h ago
What are the chances that Telegram is an op by the FSB?
omnimus•2h ago
They are very likely involved. It's shocking how many people use it as Signal alternative. Telegram did the marketing well. I have suspicion authorities around the world like it too because Telegram most likely gives police no fuss access.
bboygravity•2h ago
What are the chances that Signal is an op ran by the NSA?
Qem•2h ago
Or Whatsapp is an op run by Mossad: https://www.business-humanrights.org/de/neuste-meldungen/opt...
akomtu•2h ago
Was it ever meant to make us free in any way? Internet started as a gov project to create a resilient war-time network, a tool of coordination and control. It certainly wasn't "built for us by our fathers".
mingus88•40m ago
The gov project was ARPANET. The public internet was not intended to be a classified wartime network.

Then we had Internet2 which is backbone dedicated to research, again, not a tool for coordination or control.

If you were online in the 90s, a popular refrain was that the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it. It was very much operated as a free space for ideas. There was no centralization of platforms, no apps, and anyone could host whatever they wanted.

Depending on your age, that is the internet built by your parents.

dc396•10m ago
Err, you have some things mixed up.

The (simplified) sequence (in the US) was:

ARPANet (1969 - 1990)

"Commercial Internet" (1989 -)

NSFNet (1990 - 1996)

Internet2 (1996 -)

NSFNet, overseen and partially funded by (unsurprisingly) the National Science Foundation, had quite a number of restrictions and an acceptable use policy that prohibited commercial use. To get around those restrictions, the "Commercial Internet Exchange" was formed allowing commercial networks to easily interconnect.

As for "apps", the World Wide Web was invented in 1989 and publicly released in 1993. Prior to that, there was "Usenet News" and a service called "gopher". There were many centralized services that interconnected with "the Internet" (mostly NSFNet), e.g., Compuserve, AOL, MSN, etc.

dc396•26m ago
The beginning of the network that eventually evolved into the Internet was because an ARPA project manager had too many terminals on his desk. See J.C.K. Licklider and the SAGE Air Defense project.
josefritzishere•2h ago
Pavel is right though.
n4r9•1h ago
Some of it is. Some verges on "far" right. E.g.

> The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets

is a misleading dog whistle.

https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclos...

There are ~2k arrests per year (not imprisonment), and it includes stuff like racial harassment, domestic abuse, and pedophilic grooming, over any electronic communications network including phone or email.

vizzah•2h ago
He has his own agenda. And probably asked ChatGPT to refine the text. It's quite dull. Also with constantly pushing Telegram as "secure" messenger (and belittling competitors for "innovating" less), for me Durov is just a clear-cut hypocrite (and a wannabe who enjoys running sticker sale campaigns more than addressing real issues - not just talking about them when he got affected). Not a person I'd trust.
rhetocj23•1h ago
Hes another tech fella whos challenged vertically and in terms of physical appearance generally.

Hes full of it.