All Telegram users are currently having the whining of Pavel Durov pushed on them, where he squeals about the freedoms of the internet. That is Pavel Durov, Russian citizen, Resident of UAE. Both bastions of the free internet, which Mr Durov has never developed the spine to criticise.

Tartu, as always, a pleasure. Good to see new and old faces!

Obligatory regular Tallinn visit 🇪🇪

Obligatory regular Tallinn visit 🇪🇪

This is editorialising/opinion. Very unclear how it is front and centre on the BBC and how it fits the BBC mandate

‘Kharkov’

Brexit, 8 years of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak… of all the people who should sit this one out…

Nice to be able to get hold of this in the UK, beats the hell out of the brewed under licence dross.

Similar questions about Tibet, the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, and Uyghurs are highly censored. You can occasionally game it based on 'presenting an argument' or asking for travel advice - the following was captured in a quick screenshot before it was subsequently censored.

Some things are clearly classified as more sensitive than others. I could not get any kind of reply at all about Tiananmen Square or the 'great leader'. Not even through the most gentle line of questioning.

I then decided to ask some big questions for my new 'assignment' on China, and found varying levels of censorship depending on what was asked, how it was asked, and the answer generated. Sometimes, it goes full propagana:

I am very cool and spent my morning playing with Deepseek. I decided I would make a burner account with a very grown-up password... but wasn't allowed to register with this, due to 'malicious attacks on Deepseek servers'. Funnily enough, when I removed any mention of the CCP it worked.

‘How did you spend your Saturday?’

‘Ah just a quiet one mate, stood in 4 degree weather shouting at passers by to ‘wake up’ about a pandemic a few years ago outside the local cinema’

Just calling into the bad place to have a look, and...

Just been through. Still colder than a Siberian winter but they’ve made it a bit warmer by adding a large hole to allow the snow in.