Block Arabic, Chinese and Other Alphabets in a Telegram Group

To block Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic or any other alphabet in a Telegram group, use Alphabets in Doublegram Security: messages written in the alphabets you tick are removed. 🔤 Names check does the same with the names of people joining, before they can write. Both are part of Doublegram Premium: see Security Premium for your group.

Turn on Alphabets

1. In the group, send /settings.
2. Tap 💬 Message control, then Alphabets.
3. Tap 🔴 Alphabet filter: the dot turns 🟢.
4. Tick the alphabets to block. A ✅ marks each one.

There are 11: Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Hebrew, Thai, Greek, Latin and Other alphabets. None is ticked at the start.

• Indian covers Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil and the other scripts of India and Sri Lanka. Thai includes Lao.
• Japanese is kana. Chinese characters count as Chinese, unless the message also has kana.
• Other alphabets is everything else, such as Armenian, Georgian or Ethiopic.

A Russian-speaking group can block Latin the same way an English-speaking group blocks Cyrillic.

How strict: 🎯 When

• mostly in that alphabet (default): a message is removed when at least half of its letters are in a blocked alphabet. A foreign word inside a normal sentence goes through.
• even one word: one word in a blocked alphabet is enough. Single letters, like the ones in ಠ_ಠ, never count.

Only letters count: emoji, numbers, links and @mentions don't. Fancy letters such as 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞 count as Latin. Captions, polls and edited messages are checked too. Admins can write in any alphabet.

Disguised letters

Disguised letters is on by default. It removes words that mix Latin letters with look-alike Cyrillic or Greek ones, like Frее written with a Cyrillic е, even if those alphabets aren't blocked. It's the trick spam uses to get past word filters. It only applies to messages written mostly in Latin letters: a Russian message with an English word inside isn't touched.

What happens to the message

• Action: Mute (default, for 1 hour), Warn or Ban, plus Delete their messages, on by default.
• 💬 Notice to the person: by default the author alone sees 🚫 Your message was removed: it was written with letters that are not allowed here.
• 🔔 Admin alerts: 🔔 Blocked alphabet, with the alphabet or disguised letters. See Admin alerts.

Names check: stop names at the door

Many spam accounts have names in an alphabet the group doesn't use. 🔤 Names check keeps them out: /settings → 🚪 Member entry → 🔤 Names check, then tap 🔴 Names check. It's off by default.

• It reads the first and last name of whoever joins, not the username or the bio. Only when they join: a name changed later isn't checked again.
• It acts right away, before the verification and before they can write. Join requests from those names are declined.
• 👢 Action: Remove (default): they're taken out and can come back, for example after changing their name. 🚫 Action: Ban: they can't come back until an admin unbans them.
• It works with the join verification off, and with the Alphabet filter for messages off.
• Members already in the group, and people an admin adds by hand, aren't touched. The person gets no message. Admins get 🔔 Name in a blocked alphabet.

The list of alphabets is the same on both screens: a tick on one applies to the other. 🎯 When and Disguised letters apply to names too, and are set in Alphabets, where they show while the Alphabet filter is on.

For single words rather than whole alphabets, see How to ban words in a Telegram group.