How to stop spam bots on Telegram

Before we answer this question and provide you with list of useful anti spam functions for telegram groups we need to discuss some basics. In this section we will learn what are spam bots, what techniques spammers love to use to pollute the telegram groups and finally what are the best anti spam techniques to use on telegram groups ( and what your bot can help you with ).

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What are spam bots on Telegram

Our project started in 2017 and since then we have learned a lot about spam bots and how they work. We can distinguish two types of spam bots:

• Actual telegram bots developed with sole purpose of spamming the groups. You can recognise them by their handle ( the @somethingBot ), ending with the bot which is a Telegram requirement for all the bots on the platform. We have observed dramatic drop in the number of spam bots using the actual telegram bot api since 2020. Most likely either Telegram team organised the crackdown or they’re too obvious to be blocked by even the simplest anti-spam bots.
• Bots posing as regular users, using the same connectivity to the Telegram as any other user would do. Those were close to impossible to recognise until they started spamming because - yes, you guessed it - they look like normal user accounts. Really often they have quite realistic profile pictures ( of course stolen from social media ) or even human-like profile description. That’s where catching professional anti-spam bot on telegram comes in handy.

Telegram group promotion scams

From what we discovered, most of the spam attacks are the group owners fault. Yes, you’ve read it right.

Group owners usually try to make their group more popular, but after weeks of trying they try to do it the easy way. To do so they usually purchase group members ( we have tested dozens of those with the strict purpose of discovering how spammers operate ) from the internet. After spending hundreds of dollars on experiments with those services we can say openly - since the beginning of our bot existence not even a single service provided actual members which would participate in the discussion.

The members usually sent to your account are the bots posing as regular users. Yes - the counter / number of your group members will grow but it will be temporary. On top of that - most of those accounts will be activated by the same person you just paid to “promote” your group and will start sending out spam messages within your group, because someone else paid them as well. That’s how the “telegram group promotion” looks like. Don’t believe in “real members”, and “guarantee” - you will not only waste your money but also risk real users leaving your group if you can’t handle the spam ( although our group manager bot can help you with that )!

Telegram bot attack types

We have learned that spam bots are a serious threat to the telegram groups - either to the users privacy ( as they can leak the group messages ) or the group itself. Except of regular messages with links to other groups which is the most primitive method of spamming we found following ones to be the latest trends.

Porn spam on telegram

Spammers even offer service of “disabling” the group by for example drip feeding the group with their fake accounts, waiting for few days just to send the messages containing either pornography or illegal materials, then using the same accounts to report messages sent to the group to Telegram support, which naturally - blocks the group as it’s considered unsafe for users. Our telegram group management bots NSFW scanning feature prevents such attacks.

Attention grabbing spam

Another type of the attack - more primitive in design is, once again - joining the group as regular users to bypass the group’s anti-spam protection. Then changing their profiles to contain explicit images, sometimes description also is filled up with the explicit content and links. After some time those accounts try to send out what we call “attention grabbing” messages. It could be randomly sent emoji or a voice note. Those accounts never reply to the messages in public but wait for less cautious users to contact them in private. After which they’ll either try to scam you, send you viruses or try to get your pictures / personal details.
We’d like to warn anyone even attempting to do so, that spammers can and most likely will report the messages as spam to telegram support, after which you’d lose the privilege of messaging people privately or even joining the groups for some time.

Anti spam bot on telegram - features

There’s a list of functions which we recommend to be on for all the telegram groups which take fighting spam seriously.

• SPAM AI. This function uses our prior knowledge of the spam bots and their behaviour. It’s a good way to catch the spam bots before they start spamming. It also contains the database of all the users our bot have ever seen with their spam score. When you enable it - bot will check all the users present or joining your group and will kick out those with high spam score.
• Scan media for adult content - scan user profile images It came to our attention that in past few months plenty of spam accounts have relatively normal first few profile images, just to surprise the viewer with adult photos further in their gallery. This function will periodically re-scan user profile images and verify if they contain adult content. If they do - bot will kick them out.
• Scan photos with OCR - We have learned that spammers started sending out photos with spam content text embedded in them. This function enables conversion of the text from pictures into regular text and then running checks you have set for normal messages on the result.
• Delete invitations will take care of removal of invites to other groups. Remember to set your group link in the panel ( if bot has not detected it before ) before. Invitations removal is the simplest way the spammers attack your telegram group.
• Delete all audio messages if your group and users do not use the audio messages. Bot will not punish the users for sending those. Spammers use the audio messages to gain attention of users. They usually send repetitive, pre-recorded voice notes saying “I need help with my phone, can someone help me please?” just to make the users message them privately.
• Delete all forwarded messages - spammers quite often use forwarded messages to check the group traffic and number of active users. This function will delete all the forwarded messages from the group without punishing the user, so if someone innocently forwards the message from different group and channel - it’ll simply disappear.
• Bad words filter - will look for specified by you unwanted bad words. You can use them for either links you don’t like ( for example google.com ) or any other word like crypto ( which will also remove messages containing cryptocurrency, cryptography, etc. )
• Enable captcha mode will restrict any new user joining your group until they click confirmation button. This is one of the best methods to prevent spammers from joining your group. You can also switch on the kick user if captcha not solved after specific time to avoid any potential snooping accounts. Captchas can’t be resolved by automated accounts.

Congratulations! With all the functions mentioned above enabled your group became spam free.