Telegram: How to remove spammers

Spamming can be an issue with Telegram chats.

If you receive direct messages [DM] from random people on Telegram saying things such as, 'Hello' or 'Hello, what are the XR groups doing?' or similar - simply report, block and delete immediately. If you engage with a random DM then you'll find yourself in a conversation, the spammer will try to engage you for as long as possible resulting in either asking for money, help with transferring funds or something along those lines.

How do spammers get into groups?

If members can share the group's invite link, it can end up anywhere.

To:

  1. remove someone from a group chat
  2. delete all of their messages
  3. report them to Telegram (although it's not known if this has an impact).

First, you need to be an Admin of the chat group. Please share the workload by making other trusted rebels Admin, after getting their permission to be made an Admin.

You can complete this process either on a phone or by using your laptop/desktop computer to access Telegram.

Please be aware that some spammers will join the group and quickly change their name to stop you finding and removing them, so try to complete this process quickly.

If you want to 'revoke' the current invite link so spammers can't use it to join or share with other spammers, and create a new invite link to be shared with only trusted rebels - again you'll need to be an Admin.

On a phone:

On a computer:

To change Permissions so spammers can't add more spammers/bad agents to your group

Changing Your Personal Settings

Prevent Random People From Adding You to Telegram (Spam) Groups

Although this will mean that only those in your Contacts can add you to Telegram chat groups, you can help speed up the process of getting into chats by adding all trusted rebels to your Contacts.

If your phone number is visible to all, spammers can find this and then add you to spam groups or direct message (DM) you using your number.

To hide your number:

If you're interested in Telegram bots, there are ways to stop spammers using these.

Telegram and Mattermost

Please bear in mind that XR has Mattermost where we can use channels for chats, a Team's Town Square and Off-Topic for announcements to all Team members and we can build one or two-way bridges between Mattermost channels and Telegram groups/channels.

Using the Hub and Mattermost is more secure than Telegram because:

If you'd like to know more about the Hub, please select this link

A bit of fun!

And while we're on the subject - one of the things that's brought me a moment of joy recently... I've found that when I get joined to a spam group, instead of immediately reporting and leaving the group, I spend one minute sending hundreds of XR stickers and gifs into the group. And invariably I get removed for spamming!

If you want to find the XR sticker pack and gifs.


Revision #17
Created 13 September 2022 20:36:45 by Ned Evans
Updated 21 December 2022 08:21:28 by Ned Evans