Telegram Rewrites User Messages and Censorship Blooms Like Flowers in the Township
April 8, 2026
Telegram Notes is almost back online. If there is art in a GOAT post, the image emerged from smart software. Grandpa Arnold is not Grandma Moses. The words, however much they appear to be output from a smart system, have been output by a still living dinobaby with some humanoid features.
Our informal blog Telegram Notes is back online. Recent Telegram-related posts appear to have been blocked, scrubbed, or otherwise disappeared from LinkedIn, a couple of LE and intel-related groups, and from a freedom loving, privacy oriented blogging service in lovely South Africa. No surprise to me.
Filtering and Monitoring?
Microsoft and LinkedIn should know what my team and I have been doing. If you don’t understand the methods used to monitor and respond to information not on the agenda of the world’s best developer of email programs, just navigate to Browsergate and work through “LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer.” With these alleged data, one wonders, “How did Microsoft/LinkedIn get smart software so very, very wonky?” And the South African operator? No clue. I learned that my content was “flagged” as AI generated. I am not sure whether to be flattered or baffled.
Thanks, Venice.ai. You did not tell me I was creating an abusive image today. Outstanding. Too bad the illustration is just good enough.
Cape Town Cares
The South African censorship move was courtesy of a free spirit in Cape Town, South Africa. (Those townships on the road from the airport to the central city are a delight. Shabeem thinking may be prevalent outside of these residential spaces.) I know that this dinobaby is not the swiftest 82 year old prowling the rest home’s grounds, but it is interesting to think that I am relying on smart software to produce snappy phrases like “write up” and “leadership” in my idiosyncratic way. I even have a GenX or GenY explanation of the content removal. If you want to check out where you too can have your content sanitized, navigate to the cute privacy first just censored BearBlog at https://bearblog.dev/.
Back Online with Telegram Notes… Sort Of
We have managed a new post about Pavel Durov’s Telegram. The write up explains that Telegram has deployed an AI editor in its Messenger container. What’s interesting is that when a Telegram user enters certain phrases, the Chinese large language model changes user content to an acceptable Chinese Communist Party form. You can read that at https://shorturl.at/GhSST.
We haven’t worked out the listing of articles so each appears with the most recent at the top of the stack. There are some definite spacing weirdnesses, and one of my semi-capable team is working on that issue as well.
Observations
A few dinobaby thoughts zipped slowly through what passes for my brain these days:
- When writing about a service like Telegram and posting that information in the US, censorship happens. The vendors insist it doesn’t, and I know that vendors especially like the BAIT (big AI tech) outfits never, ever fabricate or stretch the truth.
- Whatever angle we are taking on Telegram, Pavel Durov, the TON Foundation, TONcoin, TON Strategy Company, AlphaTON Capital, and the cast of characters associated with this sprawling system — someone, somewhere is taking the trouble to block the content.
- Online has become an interesting place. It is populated by Softies, Cape Towners like Herman Martinus, MBAs at LinkedIn, and BAIT guardrail developers.
I still find people like Moti Cristil, Oskar Hartmann, Manny Stotz, Yuri Mitin, and the GOAT himself Pavel Durov fascinating professionals. When you are 82, I hope you find a hobby as fulfilling as mine. Most of the stories about Manny, for example, do not get the timeline for his Kingsway plays straight. Few know about the estimable elite-only Equium Club which operates in places where movers and shakers move and shake. Not too many people have paid attention to the interesting career trajectory of a Ph.D. who worked for Cambridge Analytica and now serves as the president of a company engaged in AI compute leasing and online games named AlphaTON Capital with Enzo Villani, a former NASDAQ professional assisting the firm. The share price of ATON (the Mitin / Villani company and not the Russian bank of that name) was about $0.32 per share on April 7, 2026. That share price is below the NASDAQ threshold for a listed company.
The people in the rest home think I do real work. Nope, I have a hobby, and it is attracting attention from LinkedIn and the fellow who thinks his Bear Blog product is a garden. I think I understand. Gardens have to be pruned. I wonder if Herman’s AI identification system thinks this post you are reading was generated by one of the large language models. And LinkedIn / Microsoft, how can you have so much information about LinkedIn users and you continue to output truly peculiar software. Outlook in space? Nope, a giant technology company lost in space and flailing because its tether had a quality problem.
Oh, well, back to my hobby.
Stephen E Arnold, April 8, 2026
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