We have been receiving a lot of questions over the past few days: the „MeshCore Austria“ Telegram group is no longer reachable. Several users suspect that the admins removed them from the group. As far as we know, that is not what happened.
Since the questions keep coming in and rumours help nobody, here is a summary of what we know — and, just as clearly, what we do not know.
Nobody was individually removed from the group
If you lost access to the group, you did nothing wrong and you were not singled out. Every member is affected at the same time, because the group as a whole is no longer available. There was no removal by the admins.
What appears to have happened
According to one group member — and we are not able to verify or confirm this — the sequence of events was as follows:
- A Telegram bot automatically posted messages into the group, including advertising related to drug trafficking.
- Several members reported those messages to Telegram.
- Telegram then banned both the group and the administrator's account.
One thing that cannot be concluded from it, however, is any fault on the part of the group's administration. Spam injected by automated bots can hit any open group — nobody running a public community group is immune to it.
We asked for a statement
We asked the responsible administrators for a statement so that we could also present the perspective of those directly involved. As of writing, we had received no reply. We do not read anything into that: if your own Telegram account is banned, replying through that very channel is difficult by definition. As soon as we receive a statement, we will add it here.
To be clear: meshcore.at and „MeshCore Austria“ are not the same thing
One point comes up again and again in the messages we receive, so let us state it plainly: the chat groups operating under the name „MeshCore Austria“ have no direct connection to meshcore.at. They are separate groups with separate administrators.
In practical terms:
- We have no access to those Telegram groups and no moderation rights in them.
- We had no influence on the ban, and none on Telegram's decisions.
- We can neither re-add members nor get the group reinstated.
On the proliferation of groups: a fair point
Along with the questions, we also received criticism we fully understand: group chats have proliferated across a range of platforms. Newcomers have no idea where to ask their question, and those who have been around a while inevitably follow only a fraction of them. We too have considered this fragmentation an unwelcome development for some time — it costs the community reach and makes it harder to keep reliable information in one place.
We cannot resolve it on our own: the groups belong to different operators, and nobody gets to dictate where other people talk. What we can contribute is transparency — an overview of which groups exist and what each one is meant for.
Where the conversation is happening right now
At the time this article was published, the following groups were active:
- Telegram: t.me/+JJ6FJAX8qVU3YTg0 — the direct successor to the banned group, and therefore the place to go for general discussion about MeshCore in Austria.
- Signal: join the Signal group — opened in the meantime, for anyone who prefers to stay off Telegram.
The network itself keeps running
Regardless of all this: the MeshCore network in Austria is unaffected by the ban. Nodes, repeaters and communication within the mesh run over LoRa and are therefore entirely independent of Telegram or any other messenger. That independence is one of the reasons this network exists in the first place.
We would ask everyone to refrain from speculation and from assigning personal blame. Based on everything known so far, nobody in the community did anything wrong. As soon as we have solid information or a statement from those involved, we will update this article.