Article author here. Check the emacs-devel thread: some people were able to repro the flickering and some couldn't. It appears to depend heavily on details of your machine.
I have two X1 Carbon 4th Gen machines, one running Goobuntu (basically Ubuntu 14.04 with a new kernel) and one running Ubuntu 16.10. They both flicker, but differently.
Black and white horizontal lines or misrendered text for a split second until a white blink rerenders the whole page. Happens somewhat frequently when I have heavy CPU load on a Linux laptop.
I have two X1 Carbon 4th Gen machines, one running Goobuntu (basically Ubuntu 14.04 with a new kernel) and one running Ubuntu 16.10. They both flicker, but differently.