diff --git a/gen.py b/gen.py
index a46c292..25e94cc 100755
--- a/gen.py
+++ b/gen.py
@@ -18,13 +18,18 @@ def parse_args():
 	)
 	return parser.parse_args()
 
+PAIRED_PUNCTUATION = re.compile(r"[{}]".format(re.escape('[](){}"‘’“”«»„')))
+
 async def main():
 	args = parse_args()
 	cfg = utils.load_config(args.cfg)
 
 	toot = await utils.make_post(cfg, mode=utils.TextGenerationMode.__members__[args.mode])
 	if cfg['strip_paired_punctuation']:
-		toot = re.sub(r"[\[\]\(\)\{\}\"“”«»„]", "", toot)
+		toot = PAIRED_PUNCTUATION.sub("", toot)
+	toot = toot.replace("@", "@\u200b")  # sanitize mentions
+	toot = utils.remove_mentions(cfg, toot)
+
 	if not args.simulate:
 		async with Pleroma(api_base_url=cfg['site'], access_token=cfg['access_token']) as pl:
 			try:
diff --git a/third_party/utils.py b/third_party/utils.py
index 1eac5f3..3680530 100644
--- a/third_party/utils.py
+++ b/third_party/utils.py
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ def load_config(cfg_path):
 
 	return cfg
 
-def remove_mention(cfg, sentence):
+def remove_mentions(cfg, sentence):
 	# optionally remove mentions
 	if cfg['mention_handling'] == 1:
 		return re.sub(r"^\S*@\u200B\S*\s?", "", sentence)