Censorship Industrial Complex
Telegram Will Now Share Users’ IP Addresses and Phone Numbers With Governments in Response to Legal Requests

News release from Reclaim The Net
Telegram, the messaging app that once positioned itself as the rebel’s answer to Big Tech surveillance, has made a sharp U-turn on the “we protect your data at all costs” highway. On Monday, the company quietly updated its privacy policy to allow for the disclosure of user information—like those precious IP addresses and phone numbers—to law enforcement, but only, of course, if they present a valid legal request.
As we all know, no one has ever stretched the definition of “valid” to fit their agenda, right? This revelation comes hot on the heels of a little incident back in August, when Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov found himself in handcuffs, detained by French authorities. What was the crime? Well, it appears Telegram was accused of playing hardball with French law enforcement, refusing to hand over data, leading to Durov’s arrest. It seems law enforcement didn’t take kindly to that level of noncompliance, especially after making 2,460 unanswered requests for information. The Policy Flip-Flop The new policy revision is a complete about-face from the one Telegram’s loyal fans were sold on. The old rules were crystal clear. Telegram might give up your details—your IP address and phone number—but only if you were a suspect in a terror case. The policy even reassured everyone that this kind of handover had never happened. Not anymore. Now, Telegram has widened the net. According to the newly revised policy, if you violate Telegram’s Terms of Service—you know, the thing no one ever reads—they may hand over your info if they get a “valid” order. The language is dripping with corporate hedging: “If Telegram receives a valid order from the relevant judicial authorities that confirms you’re a suspect in a case involving criminal activities that violate the Telegram Terms of Service, we will perform a legal analysis of the request and may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities.” |
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Of course, Telegram is still committed to transparency—at least on paper. The company promises to disclose all such incidents in its quarterly transparency reports, which, conveniently, can be accessed via a dedicated bot.
Durov’s Declaration: Aimed at Who, Exactly? Durov took to Telegram to tell users, “We have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, ensuring they are consistent across the world.” |
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He continued, “We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.”Durov further added, “These measures should discourage criminals. Telegram Search is meant for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal goods. We won’t let bad actors jeopardize the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users.”
The French Connection But what really forced Telegram’s hand? Let’s rewind to Durov’s August airport arrest, where things started to get clearer. After allegedly over 2,400 ignored requests for data, French authorities had had enough. They brought in the National Gendarmerie to get to the bottom of Telegram’s refusal to cooperate. Apparently, turning over data wasn’t an option until they started detaining CEOs. |
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Censorship Industrial Complex
They knew it was a lab leak all along

MxM News
Newly Revealed Documents Confirm Lab Leak Coverup
Quick Hit:
The global debate over COVID-19’s origins has taken a dramatic turn after newly uncovered reports indicate that intelligence agencies in Germany had determined with near certainty that the virus originated in a Chinese lab as early as 2020. Despite this revelation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly chose to suppress the findings, aligning with a broader pattern of obfuscation by Western governments and media outlets.
Key Details:
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German newspapers Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that Germany’s intelligence agency, the BND, concluded in early 2020 with 80% to 95% certainty that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China.
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The intelligence was based on a combination of public-domain research and classified investigations under the code name “Saaremaa.”
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Merkel’s administration allegedly buried the findings, with her successor Olaf Scholz continuing the suppression, ensuring the information remained hidden from the public until now.
Diving Deeper:
Journalist Alex Berenson detailed the shocking revelations in his Substack op-ed, underscoring how “the American media is doing its best to ignore the biggest news this week.” Berenson criticized legacy media outlets for fixating on the five-year anniversary of COVID-19 while sidestepping the implications of newly surfaced intelligence.
According to Berenson, German intelligence reached its high-confidence conclusion after analyzing public materials and conducting covert operations. “The material… indicated that there had been some risky research methods used there [at the Wuhan Institute of Virology], compounded by breaches of laboratory safety rules… [and] so-called gain-of-function experiments, in which viruses occurring in nature are manipulated [to become more dangerous or transmissible],” he wrote.
Rather than alert the world to the evidence, Merkel chose to suppress it. Berenson sarcastically noted, “Who immediately told the world of the findings and demanded a full investigation into what China’s totalitarian government knew and when it knew it? Nah, I’m funning you. Angela stuffed that report in a drawer and got back to doing what she did best, destroying Germany’s industrial base to make Greta Thunberg happy.”
The refusal to disclose this intelligence aligns with a broader pattern of deception from both governmental and media institutions, which spent years dismissing the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. Berenson noted that during early 2020, “Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Peter Daszak… were gently steering their fellow scientists towards a conclusion that COVID’s origins were 100 billion zillion percent natural.”
Even after Merkel left office in 2021, Scholz’s government continued to keep the intelligence under wraps. “The BND told her replacement, Olaf Scholz, ‘without the results finding their way to the public’ — as the British newspaper The Telegraph delicately put it,” Berenson wrote. Now that the findings have emerged, the German government has not denied the reports, leaving Berenson to conclude, “There’s about a 100 to 100 percent chance they’re true.”
The final takeaway? “We all sorta knew this already, right? Both the lab leak and the coverup,” Berenson observed. “But there’s knowing and there’s knowing. And it looks like the same American news outlets that spent 2020 and 2021 lying (or, at best, being hopelessly credulous) about China and COVID still aren’t ready to come clean.”
As new evidence continues to surface, the question remains: Will legacy media and world leaders finally acknowledge the lab leak theory as fact, or will they continue to deflect responsibility and protect their preferred narratives?
Censorship Industrial Complex
How America is interfering in Brazil and why that matters everywhere. An information drop about USAID

USAID Corruption & Brazil’s Elections w/ Nikolas Ferreira & Mike Benz | PBD Podcast
If you’re reading this you’re probably aware that there’s an information war going on. Not the battle between the corporate media vs the new independent journalists. That’s more of a technological and a new media story. The real battle isn’t only between the players, it’s between the information each side is sharing with their audiences.
The corporate world looks down on independent media. They use words like disinformation and misinformation and conspiracy. What they don’t do very often is examine the information being shared and present their own take. In fact, often they don’t share the information at all.
This leaves corporate media faithful in a disadvantaged position. They’re angry because they can’t understand why the world is changing (for the worse in their opinion). They won’t give up their corporate addiction because they’ve become intrenched in the belief the independent start ups are sharing misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories. Because their corporate sources of information choose to ignore or criticize information without presenting a more informed and researched version themselves, their followers are completely missing out on many of the biggest stories that are shaping the century we’re struggling through.
This podcast is a perfect example. Chances are those who ignore independent media have no idea who Patrick Bet David is. That means they’re very unlikely to know anything about Mike Benz. Benz has been revealing secrets of the deep state for years. Recently he’s picked up massive audiences as he makes sense of what’s happening in America and around the world. (Especially with USAID) PBD also talks to Brazilian social media sensation Niklas Ferreira who has a perspective of politics in South America’s largest and most important nation unlike anything you’ll see in the corporate media.
This podcast is fascinating and it answers a lot of questions, not just about America and Brazil, but about the US deep state efforts to control political movements everywhere.
From the PBD Podcast
Patrick Bet-David sits down with Nikolas Ferreira and Mike Benz to dissect the deep connections between USAID, Brazilian corruption, and the political battle between Lula and Bolsonaro.
Ferreira, one of Brazil’s most outspoken conservative voices, exposes how foreign influence and NGOs may be shaping Brazil’s political landscape, while Benz, an expert in geopolitical strategy, unpacks the hidden power dynamics between Washington and Latin America.
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