Durov, Deal With the “Stars”!

Durov, deal with the “stars”!

Russians are increasingly being prosecuted for using Telegram Stars, the messenger’s internal currency. Because of a “star” left under a post, people can be charged, for example, under articles on treason or financing terrorism. In such cases, the punishment can go all the way up to life imprisonment.

So what should be done?

We urge Telegram’s developers to consider our proposals for making “stars” safer: If you want to help prevent new prosecutions, copy the text below and send it to the bot @PressBot and to security@telegram.org:

Dear Telegram team,

I ask you to pay attention to the fact that, according to reports by media outlets and human rights defenders, Russian authorities are using Telegram Stars to prosecute users of the service.

It recently became known that a court sentenced a man to 8 years in prison in a case about financing “terrorism” because of 130 “stars.” It is telling what kinds of publications the reactions were left under: they included news reports, an offer to buy a VPN, and information on how to use “stars” safely. This case is not isolated — human rights defenders have previously reported cases over “stars” under the most serious articles, including treason.

Telegram Stars are a real threat to users of the service. Security forces treat stars as a financial transaction. Even 1 star can become grounds for a criminal case.

I ask the Telegram team to take the following measures:

1. Inform users about the risks. It may be important for a user to receive information about the legal risks associated with “stars.”

2. Make Telegram Stars anonymous by default. Information about the user should not automatically be open — the user must consciously agree to the publicity of information about their account and the reaction they left.

3. Add a privacy setting for “stars” to the general account settings. The user should be able to choose a mode once in the settings in which all “stars” are automatically sent anonymously.

4. Provide users with a function to delete their transaction history with “stars.” Anonymizing the sending is not enough — if security forces gain access to a device or account, they may obtain information about sent “stars.” The user must be able to delete information that poses a threat to them.

5. Give channel administrators the ability to completely hide lists of “star” senders.

6. Increase the cancellation period for “stars.” It is easy to leave a reaction unintentionally, so the user should be able to cancel a “star” over a longer period of time (currently only 5 seconds are allotted for this).

🔗 More proposals and the full text of the letter can be read here. And here is our detailed analysis of how “stars” work in Telegram.

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