On May 15, Telegram founder Pavel Durov posted on his personal channel, saying, "We are launching the first content creator competition with a simple goal: create a viral video showing how Telegram is always ahead of its cheap imitator—WhatsApp. We discovered that WhatsApp has launched a smear PR campaign against Telegram, so we must fight back. No more Mr. Nice Guy—the gloves are off, and we're ready for battle".
"It's time to wake up WhatsApp users. They are stuck in the past, using a diluted version of features that Telegram pioneered long ago and which are now outdated. To help you get started, we've listed 30 key features that Telegram introduced first—which were later cloned by our green competitor. Of course, this list is not exhaustive. It doesn't even cover many of the features Telegram users enjoy that still don't exist on WhatsApp—those would take dozens of slides to explain. Therefore, we are not worried about WhatsApp trying to catch up—we are far ahead".
