After years of being harassed and banned from social media by the puzzling minions of the Trust and Safety Brigade, it is now our turn to be deboosted by Elon Musk, for the pettiest of reasons.
Bingo. While I'm sure I would have *eventually* run across a good sales pitch slash description of Substack Notes, Musk's poorly thought out retaliation ensured that I and many others read about it much sooner.
Musk isn't who we'd hoped he'd be, unfortunately, though I won't abandon all hope that he will in time see the error of his ways on some of these issues.
I don't know more than I've seen online about Twitter, but is it monetized by making members pay for the privileged of posting comments like many Substacks that I have unsubscribed from because of it? Here's a great big thank you to eugyppius for not playing that game.
For what its worth, I just unsubscribed from Peter McCullough's Substack because it wouldn't let me point out that Comirnaty was supposedly not available in the US while he was citing deaths caused by it here.
Was he using shorthand 'Comirnaty' for the EUA version, perhaps?
The *brand name* injection product, i.e., Comirnaty, has never been available, as far as I am aware, as the company decided to use up stocks of the Emergency-Use-Authorized (EUA) version, and uptake/acceptance of repeated injection has tanked. They are not identical products, either in exact composition or in legal status, as the branded version would be subject to legal liability, whereas the EUA version is not.
They're not even identical from one lot to another. Not even within the same lots. It's a real-time live experiment. With humans as the guinea pigs. Some lots are made with more or less of contents they are testing for, different nano biotech sizes, coatings, different uptake adjuvants, different storage temperatures and conditions. Adverse events and illness can be tracked back to lot numbers, delivering population-wide data on the experimental concoctions. When you have billions of test subjects you can try out many different experimental biotechnologies at the same time. They rub their hands together and grin from ear to ear with all of the test subjects they've been delivered. Experiencing the same sadistic joy that Mengele had with so many death camp subjects. Science!!!
Sorry, I don't accept some huge intentional experiment. I am convinced that the makers are not yet capable of making a quality, standard product using these fragile biological concoctions. Don't know if it's possible with our current technology. We are in an experiment but one without any controls nor observers.
I tend to agree HardeeHo, I think it's more likely poor quality control and lack of any safety protocols. They've already shown not to really care with their horrible trials where they eliminate control groups and cook results. I would seriously doubt that they are taking the time to monitor the lot numbers and batches to see. They have admitted to not monitoring VAERS . They are protected so why should they care. The HOWBADISMYBATCH that Freedom Fox mentions, I not sure if that's a government site ,so no need to monitor it,would be their defense
Based on what I've read, Comimaty is only available in Germany. It's approval there was used to fake its approval here. It is functionally and compositionally identical to Pfizer's unapproved American "vaccine." Vaccines have long been immune to liability claims, for the same reasons that nuclear power plants can't get commercial liability insurance.
"EUA products can’t be used once fully licensed product becomes available [note: *available;* the fake approval was done to convince people it's safe, but since they were not actually fielded, they were not "available," so they could still use up the EUA stocks]
"Another key difference between fully licensed and EUA vaccines is that, under the 2005 Public Readiness and Preparedness Act (PREP Act), EUA vaccines are accompanied by a far-reaching liability shield that protects all parties involved with the product from lawsuits.
"Specifically, if one is injured by an EUA vaccine, the only way to claim damages and receive compensation is to apply to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), an administrative process under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which authorized the vaccines.
"This scheme potentially covers only unpaid medical expenses and lost wages and creates significant barriers for filing a vaccine injury lawsuit.
"Notably, under 4% of claims made through this program have been compensated. To date, CICP has not compensated any claims for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
"At this time [11/30/2021], the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine may have no liability shield, making it subject to product liability laws that allow those injured by it to potentially sue for damages, although Pfizer asserts that the vaccine is protected under the PREP Act as well."
EUA products can't be used if there are existing products, like ivermectin and HCQ, with demonstrated long-term efficacy and safety.
A moderator on the CHD website, John Stone, banned me several years ago because I wouldn't cave to his misunderstood opinion, and CHD management has stood by his action.
"The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (Secretary) to issue a PREP Act declaration. The declaration provides immunity from liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims:
- of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions
- determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency
- to entities and individuals involved in the development, manufacture, testing, distribution, administration, and use of such countermeasures
"A PREP Act declaration is specifically for the purpose of providing immunity from liability, and is different from, and not dependent on, other emergency declarations.
"COVID-19 PREP Act Declarations
"The end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Declaration does not automatically terminate PREP Act coverage."
From the FDA, from the time the FDA did the fake 'approval:' "The products are legally distinct with certain differences that do not impact safety or effectiveness.” "But [t]he FDA provided no explanation as to how the licensed Comirnaty vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine could “be used interchangeably” despite having “certain differences” that make them “legally distinct.”" [https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/judge-allen-winsor-pfizer-eua-comirnaty-vaccines-interchangeable/]
I just unsubscribed from Karen Kingston's Substack for the same reason, which will make it more difficult for her readers to gain the understanding she claims to crave from dialogue that they can't afford to support financially.
Excellent piece… always great reporting. As an aside, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai(sp?) an MIT engineer, politician, etc. has revealed an “open back door portal between govt agencies and Twitter” that allowed govt control of content. Musk has not removed or closed down this portal! So the govt continues to censor and police content.
Your article title "Why crippling Substack links on Twitter is dumb, counter-productive and bad for everyone" brings me to this point... One thing the last 3 years has clearly shown us is that those in control of the media don't give a damn whether it is "bad for everyone". Twitter is obviously doing censorship and that is one of many reasons I never use it.
I was an early adopter of Twitter, joining circa 2008. I left in late 2020 for several reasons, but mainly because of the censorship that was plainly obvious back then. Also, many of the people I followed began to post on Substack so I could follow them there. I preferred the longer form content available on Substack - kind of like one-stop shopping for good blogs. I will say that I found some of my favorite Substack authors via Twitter, but now I get references from many other places and don't miss Twitter as a reference source. I honestly don't think Twitter can survive. Despite Musk's grandiose vision for Twitter, it is never going to make enough money to even break even. I expect it to go out of business in less than 5 years. So, don't worry about quitting Twitter - life goes on easily without it and it will be gone soon anyway.
Musk told everyone he would do exactly what he's doing when he took over Twitter. He declared his support for free speech was conditional: freedom of speech isn't the same as freedom of reach. His words. Speak freely all you want. But it will be in an empty room if Twitter decides it doesn't deserve an audience. He explicitly said this. Shaddow-banning was always a part of his new and improved Twitter.
Y'all be acting surprised he's doing what he said. Expecting an abuser who's abused you, told you he will continue to abuse you, to stop abusing you is like a victim of domestic abuse going back to their abuser expecting they'll change, this time.
Walk away. Promote the heck out of your Substack content elsewhere. The custom url piece is important, because nothing and I mean nothing is assured that Substack is immune to these global pressures hostile to free speech. Just one look at the address for Substack stands out as a yellow flag: San Francisco. And it's not like the same authors of censorship at Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc don't know about it. And they follow it. Especially writers with large followings like eugyppius. And with all we've come to know about the authors of global censorship we can't dismiss the possibility that Substack is a honeypot to draw in free thinkers and the disobedient. For whatever purposes a honeypot might have. So there's that.
We reach who we can, however we can. Even if one day our only way to share information is low tech like the founders of the US, passing out booklets, like Paine's Common Sense, and meeting in pubs and coffeehouses. Because, freedom!
Common sense, Rights of man, and other essential writings of Thomas Paine
I've been cautious about Musk's takeover from the beginning. I never heralded this as necessarily a good thing. That said, Musk's own statements and actions have been all over the map and often self-contradictory. He's an erratic personality whose commitments and interests change often.
*Eccentric geniuses* have always needed stable partners to do the common-sense parts of innovation and business growth. As I say many times, people who think like Elon and Bill Gates et al can see far ahead but often not around the nearest corner.
He's a failure at the basic building block of a happy life. Many children but no solid family. He can buy his kids anything but a calm sensible father.
When Substack started, I'm sure the general public and even the social media tech world saw it as a kind of boring essay-posting site for every self-important nobody to launch their deathless words into the world.
It quickly became an essential conduit for all the stuff *they* didn't want anyone to share and examine and harness the brains of so many individuals who'd have no effect on their own but became a community one couldn't ignore. It went from Crackpot Central to the incubator and communicator of the best research possible, and *possible* was a dazzling actuality.
Its name, against all odds, is going to outshine Twitter and the five-year-old inside Elon ain't having it.
He's done those things to make it sweeter. Why work to develop alternative communication strategies outside narrative control platforms if you're content inside a sweetened up narrative control platform?
Disagree. Truth Social was new and growing. Timing of purchase was to kneecap that platform before it could stand up. Worked pretty good drawing back in users who were seriously looking at Truth.
I’m a fairly regular twitter reader. I don’t post much, nor have I bought a blue check. It’s free. I suspect there are many thousands of people like me. When I read on substack those authors I choose to read, like this one, I pay for that privilege and do so happily. For a creator such at Tiabbi to quit twitter in a huff over this seems to b a bad business decision. No way would I have subscribed to his substack if I hadn’t seen his tweets first. Elon is running multiple and disparate businesses all over the world, often w competing interests. Why quit the one that reaches the most people?
Do you think using a word that rhymes with "spank" and means "a disreputable or sleazy person" is worthy of a 1 week suspension? Even though the platform didn't kick up it's usual warning "are you sure you want to tweet that?" before the tweet reply went live; a warning that those who regularly use colorful language have come to expect? I only speak for myself, but I doubt I'm the only one who often opts to change up my wording when challenged by that warning.
No warning, 1 week ban, happened to me yesterday. So much for stopping "outright silly things." I know my gripe will come across as petty to some, but it grinds my gears, especially after deciding to support twitter blue because I felt that what Musk was doing is important to online discourse and the republic.
Substack has some vulnerability as described in the linked artilce. We must all be cognizant of that, both writers and readers alike.
I only opened a twitter account when Steve Kirsch got reinstated and asked his readers to follow him there. I've never tweeted, although I have on occassion logged in to read tweets of people I followed. I MUCH prefer substack
it's beta, small, needs feature work, etc. but looks like a basically good design.
it will be a good adjunct to substack, but a "twitter replacement"? no. it's a complement.
musk (as is often the case) has this wrong and is letting pettiness get in his way.
his claims about IP's etc are nonsense.
i spoke to someone who used to work with the twitter rate limiter and it would have done this automatically.
must appears to be making stuff up.
“After X actions of Y over Z minutes your request will no longer work (returning http 420, prob upgraded to 429 now). This prevents bots and DOS attacks.”
so, unless you have a license for the data, hard to see how this happened or how this would be the outcome.
this is war on a perceived competitor who is really a synergistic friend.
So Musk turns on Taibbi right after those hearings where the Democrats tried to scorch and smear Taibbi because there was no possible defense of the revealed collusion between Twitter and govt.
Like I been sayin'--a guy whose business model depends on close cordial cooperation with China ain't nobody's friend but governments. SpaceX contracts and EVs. Not exactly the type of genius I admire.
Substackers need to look at the big picture. Substack works because it's a direct pay model, there's no advertiser on the page who effectively controls content with their TOS. The risk here is not only banishment of links from outside (Twitter is just round 1), it's going to be the subscription money they will go after through the payment processors. "we don't allow people to say these things and you can keep your credit card processing". That's how they roll.
This is why Substack's partnership with Stripe is important. They also process payments for sites like Gumroad, and they obviously have a fairly high tolerance for the politically incorrect.
Unfortunately, these companies can turn on a dime if the wrong person is heading them. Paypal and gofundme were both unexpected and rapid change overs. :(
They do, and this is something I've researched directly and had first-hand experience with. My paid-membership blog, FreeTheAnimal.com, is highly politically incorrect (a 20-yr tradition, over 5,000 posts) and just generally incorrect.
I leave the toilet seat up.
Anyway, I use Stripe as my processor. Going fine for over a year and a half then suddenly, no warning, last Nov around Xgiving time... Account Under Review (and frozen, subscription payments, uncharged, stacking up). And nobody would tell me anything, and tech didn't know anything. Rather, they were like, "we'll look into it, get 'er right back up." Nothing happened, no word, zero reason for why it was under review.
It happened to be over a weekend and started on a Friday, so I don't know how much that had to do with it taking so long, but it was about Tuesday, I think, the review went away without notice, just as quickly as it was initiated.
I never got a single whisper as to what it was about (I've never had a payment dispute, chargeback, anything...).
I speculate that's their policy when dealing with any complaints about "incorrect" stuff such as I publish. Being a former Navy Officer, I do understand the "we can neither confirm nor deny" policy. It quells fire. You've got nothing to go on, either way.
I had a similar thing happen, when I was just setting up payment processing. I'm not sure what triggered it, but people at Stripe got in touch with me it was all sorted within 48 hours.
I was off Twitter for a week and I don't miss it. I joined in 2015 just for the 2016 election and it had a lot of value then, I think. There was "real content" and Trump was hilarious. But now endlessly scrolling for something interesting, but not stupid, irrelevant, anxiety-producing or offensive isn't worth the effort anymore. I'm afraid to comment on anything because my innocuous joke about a goose got me banned for 24 hours, and my appeal was rejected, but my reports of "I hope you die" type of comments are ignored. If I reply to any big accounts on any of the "hot topics," I get subjected to "You're an idiot" troll abuse from the anime "people." I'm convinced 90% of the accounts are just gov't spy bots trying to brainwash me into thinking Biden is the greatest President of all time or else trap me into liking "the wrong thing" for later prosecution or surveillance. And the remaining accounts are probably people currently incarcerated using their limited library time to shitpost from jail.
They demoralize on purpose people who don’t follow the government narrative. Jikkyleaks uncovered a group in the UK that is definitely a government nudge program.
Musk's reaction to Substack is doubly odd coming from someone who is supposed to know a lot about business, as well as technology. Has the man never heard of cross-promotion? Anyone with even a tangential association with marketing is aware of this. It improves and increases the value of both brands.
exactly. can anyone really think, if substack disappeared tomorrow, twitter would have *more* users or engagement? the relationship among these sites is really complicated. they have different user bases and they don't function as direct competitors; content creators who do very well on one often struggle to get noticed on others.
I hate Twitter and always have. I didn’t have Twitter for years, then got an acct for my nonprofit when Elon bought it just for support. I never post tho and never go to it unless from a link here or somewhere else for one tweet. I’m perfectly happy to delete it again - I much SubStack to any social media and I don’t see it as “social media” (which is a good thing!)
There is definitely a pattern of Elon trying to refuse to “promote” competitive platforms on his own. So this particular block is intentional and like with Mastadon, may go away?
However, the overriding issue of censorship remains. Thank good ness you have our emails. My email platform Yahoo was even putting your posts and Igor’s in my spam folder during the heat of things and I’m thinking fo getting a proton account now.
Twitter is going to try and deboost you, particularly, for a variety of reasons. I watched all of this transpire with another website and blogger - The Conservative Treehouse. They deboosted and relegated him to never land on Twitter for ages. Then WordPress even forced him off their platform. He notices some patterns in the Uniparty that they don’t want people talking about.
Twitter will get censored like FB got censored in Europe. The german government will single you out Eugyppius, I hope you have all of your infrastructure in place the best you can. You spoke eloquently about Nordstream, Ukraine and the manufactured energy crisis and they won’t like that.
And there is a cycle on Twitter where as it gets closer to elections, the censorship gets much worse- see the Hunter laptop as one example. It starts ramping up about one year prior and at the 6 month mark it goes haywire with all sorts of accounts getting banned. They even did a trial run with Posobiec this last week- I’m sure they will block him too. With the DHS and FBI still having a back door access to Twitter to censor at will- this nonsense will continue until Elon finds a way to block that- I’m not even sure he can.
Definitely get yourself a Protonmail account. That is my primary service. I use my legacy Yahoo account as a spam bucket mostly. When a site requires an email address for no particular reason, I always give it the Yahoo address. I have very few emails of any interest to me that show up in Yahoo these days. 98% get deleted immediately. It's just a matter of going in to clear it out once a day, like cleaning the lint trap in the clothes dryer.
I'm also a bit nervous about Notes becoming subject to algorithmic manipulation. We'll need to wait and see on that one, I guess.
I think the pettiest aspect of the Twitter brouhaha is redirecting all searches for 'Substack' to 'newsletter'. Just ... why? From a purely selfish perspective this annoys me, as I periodically look to see what people sharing my posts are saying about them.
I like Twitter and pay to support it. It’s great for tech news, OK for medical news. I like Substack more, and pay for a lot of authors, many of whom represent alternate viewpoints, and well thought out rebuttals or considerations of events I wouldn’t have thought of. Of the two, Substack is better, because the authors are paid, more coherent, and would otherwise never be heard in today’s media. Twitter has no payment, branding, or real account security for authors.
So, how has Substack escaped the censorship demons but not anyone else? Is it simply too young or maybe the subscription platform silos things enough where it's hard for the censors to prune data for wrong think. They have similar sandards of service to other sites, but seem to apply hem as loosely as possible.
Veering towards the opinion that the censors are ultimately just lazy, and reading a long-form 1500 word essay on a bad-think concept is a lot harder than going after a 50 word tweet.
this also important. video is most heavily censored thing out there. i think audio podcasts are probably the safest – stick anything you want in hour three of a four hour episode, ain't nobody got time for that. long form articles definitely more towards the audio end of things, and any site with paywalls will have a lot built-in protection.
Unlike contributors to “Twitter and YouTube, authors at Substack have direct access to their own readers; their work is not filtered or selectively promoted by opaque recommendation algorithms, which have stifled a lot of engagement on Twitter recently. “ you hit nail on head here . The uncensorability of private emails!!!! This is the key to freedom.
Musk is trying to play all sides with Twitter which as a businessman I respect but it’s not really working. He does the same thing with his satellites, first saying he’s shutting down Ukraine from using them because he doesn’t want to promote death or whatever bs. Then the truth comes out that he wants to get paid. Now I see his new generation of satellites are falling out of the sky and China is getting a satellite network ready that will checkmate him. He should be Trump’s running mate. They both deal in a lot of snake oil to adoring fans.
Elon Musk must realise that Substack became the exile of those booted off Twitter, and thrived as a result.
A true savvy entrepeneurial streak in him, would see him want to do some sort of JV with Subtack Notes, rather than fight Substack.
he's running the risk of giving Notes more of a purpose and an audience than it would've had otherwise.
Exactly what I think, too.
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/the-streisand-effect-is-alive-and
Bingo. While I'm sure I would have *eventually* run across a good sales pitch slash description of Substack Notes, Musk's poorly thought out retaliation ensured that I and many others read about it much sooner.
Musk isn't who we'd hoped he'd be, unfortunately, though I won't abandon all hope that he will in time see the error of his ways on some of these issues.
To be fair, I think Elon packed away from management, didn’t he? Seems the moment he did, the bans and nonsense started up again.
But is Substask's Notes truly a competitor for twitter?
I don't know more than I've seen online about Twitter, but is it monetized by making members pay for the privileged of posting comments like many Substacks that I have unsubscribed from because of it? Here's a great big thank you to eugyppius for not playing that game.
For what its worth, I just unsubscribed from Peter McCullough's Substack because it wouldn't let me point out that Comirnaty was supposedly not available in the US while he was citing deaths caused by it here.
Was he using shorthand 'Comirnaty' for the EUA version, perhaps?
The *brand name* injection product, i.e., Comirnaty, has never been available, as far as I am aware, as the company decided to use up stocks of the Emergency-Use-Authorized (EUA) version, and uptake/acceptance of repeated injection has tanked. They are not identical products, either in exact composition or in legal status, as the branded version would be subject to legal liability, whereas the EUA version is not.
They're not even identical from one lot to another. Not even within the same lots. It's a real-time live experiment. With humans as the guinea pigs. Some lots are made with more or less of contents they are testing for, different nano biotech sizes, coatings, different uptake adjuvants, different storage temperatures and conditions. Adverse events and illness can be tracked back to lot numbers, delivering population-wide data on the experimental concoctions. When you have billions of test subjects you can try out many different experimental biotechnologies at the same time. They rub their hands together and grin from ear to ear with all of the test subjects they've been delivered. Experiencing the same sadistic joy that Mengele had with so many death camp subjects. Science!!!
Sorry, I don't accept some huge intentional experiment. I am convinced that the makers are not yet capable of making a quality, standard product using these fragile biological concoctions. Don't know if it's possible with our current technology. We are in an experiment but one without any controls nor observers.
Denial isn't a river in Egypt.
https://howbadismybatch.com/
I tend to agree HardeeHo, I think it's more likely poor quality control and lack of any safety protocols. They've already shown not to really care with their horrible trials where they eliminate control groups and cook results. I would seriously doubt that they are taking the time to monitor the lot numbers and batches to see. They have admitted to not monitoring VAERS . They are protected so why should they care. The HOWBADISMYBATCH that Freedom Fox mentions, I not sure if that's a government site ,so no need to monitor it,would be their defense
Based on what I've read, Comimaty is only available in Germany. It's approval there was used to fake its approval here. It is functionally and compositionally identical to Pfizer's unapproved American "vaccine." Vaccines have long been immune to liability claims, for the same reasons that nuclear power plants can't get commercial liability insurance.
Comirnaty is used in NZ and had been the main one used since the beginning of the circus.
Are the vials labeled "Comirnaty?"
"EUA products can’t be used once fully licensed product becomes available [note: *available;* the fake approval was done to convince people it's safe, but since they were not actually fielded, they were not "available," so they could still use up the EUA stocks]
"Another key difference between fully licensed and EUA vaccines is that, under the 2005 Public Readiness and Preparedness Act (PREP Act), EUA vaccines are accompanied by a far-reaching liability shield that protects all parties involved with the product from lawsuits.
"Specifically, if one is injured by an EUA vaccine, the only way to claim damages and receive compensation is to apply to the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), an administrative process under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which authorized the vaccines.
"This scheme potentially covers only unpaid medical expenses and lost wages and creates significant barriers for filing a vaccine injury lawsuit.
"Notably, under 4% of claims made through this program have been compensated. To date, CICP has not compensated any claims for COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
"At this time [11/30/2021], the Pfizer Comirnaty vaccine may have no liability shield, making it subject to product liability laws that allow those injured by it to potentially sue for damages, although Pfizer asserts that the vaccine is protected under the PREP Act as well."
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/judge-allen-winsor-pfizer-eua-comirnaty-vaccines-interchangeable/
EUA products can't be used if there are existing products, like ivermectin and HCQ, with demonstrated long-term efficacy and safety.
A moderator on the CHD website, John Stone, banned me several years ago because I wouldn't cave to his misunderstood opinion, and CHD management has stood by his action.
"The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (Secretary) to issue a PREP Act declaration. The declaration provides immunity from liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims:
- of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions
- determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency
- to entities and individuals involved in the development, manufacture, testing, distribution, administration, and use of such countermeasures
"A PREP Act declaration is specifically for the purpose of providing immunity from liability, and is different from, and not dependent on, other emergency declarations.
"COVID-19 PREP Act Declarations
"The end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Declaration does not automatically terminate PREP Act coverage."
https://aspr.hhs.gov/legal/PREPact/Pages/default.aspx
PREP is to queer sexual activity what abortion is to irresponsible straight sexuality.
From the FDA, from the time the FDA did the fake 'approval:' "The products are legally distinct with certain differences that do not impact safety or effectiveness.” "But [t]he FDA provided no explanation as to how the licensed Comirnaty vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech EUA vaccine could “be used interchangeably” despite having “certain differences” that make them “legally distinct.”" [https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/judge-allen-winsor-pfizer-eua-comirnaty-vaccines-interchangeable/]
Ivermectin and HCQ are both off patent and extremely inexpensive, incapable of providing billion dollar profits to Covid vaccine makers.
I just unsubscribed from Karen Kingston's Substack for the same reason, which will make it more difficult for her readers to gain the understanding she claims to crave from dialogue that they can't afford to support financially.
He likely sees Substack as a consequence of poor management of Twitter. He likely wants Substack to disappear and all those exiles to return.
Excellent piece… always great reporting. As an aside, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai(sp?) an MIT engineer, politician, etc. has revealed an “open back door portal between govt agencies and Twitter” that allowed govt control of content. Musk has not removed or closed down this portal! So the govt continues to censor and police content.
I recommend a rundown with these 2 articles about the DHS and FBi involvement with Twitter
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/01/15/sunday-talks-maria-bartiromo-interviews-matt-taibbi-about-the-twitter-file-discoveries-dhs-and-fbi-officials-asking-twitter-to-unmask-thousands-of-users/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/12/19/twitter-files-part-7-the-dhs-fbi-teleporter-one-way-telecommunications-channel-into-twitter-how-the-fbi-used-and-paid-twitter-for-censorship/
YES! I love that site. Great analysis and insight. Another good example of that:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/03/12/the-parliamentary-motive-behind-the-j6-fedsurrection/
The guy behind it posts on twitter using handle @TheLastRefuge2. Good follow for those of you who haven't already ran across him.
Thank you!
Your article title "Why crippling Substack links on Twitter is dumb, counter-productive and bad for everyone" brings me to this point... One thing the last 3 years has clearly shown us is that those in control of the media don't give a damn whether it is "bad for everyone". Twitter is obviously doing censorship and that is one of many reasons I never use it.
I was an early adopter of Twitter, joining circa 2008. I left in late 2020 for several reasons, but mainly because of the censorship that was plainly obvious back then. Also, many of the people I followed began to post on Substack so I could follow them there. I preferred the longer form content available on Substack - kind of like one-stop shopping for good blogs. I will say that I found some of my favorite Substack authors via Twitter, but now I get references from many other places and don't miss Twitter as a reference source. I honestly don't think Twitter can survive. Despite Musk's grandiose vision for Twitter, it is never going to make enough money to even break even. I expect it to go out of business in less than 5 years. So, don't worry about quitting Twitter - life goes on easily without it and it will be gone soon anyway.
The crossfeed from commentators are helpful, aside from those who promote themselves sans content.
Musk told everyone he would do exactly what he's doing when he took over Twitter. He declared his support for free speech was conditional: freedom of speech isn't the same as freedom of reach. His words. Speak freely all you want. But it will be in an empty room if Twitter decides it doesn't deserve an audience. He explicitly said this. Shaddow-banning was always a part of his new and improved Twitter.
Y'all be acting surprised he's doing what he said. Expecting an abuser who's abused you, told you he will continue to abuse you, to stop abusing you is like a victim of domestic abuse going back to their abuser expecting they'll change, this time.
Walk away. Promote the heck out of your Substack content elsewhere. The custom url piece is important, because nothing and I mean nothing is assured that Substack is immune to these global pressures hostile to free speech. Just one look at the address for Substack stands out as a yellow flag: San Francisco. And it's not like the same authors of censorship at Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc don't know about it. And they follow it. Especially writers with large followings like eugyppius. And with all we've come to know about the authors of global censorship we can't dismiss the possibility that Substack is a honeypot to draw in free thinkers and the disobedient. For whatever purposes a honeypot might have. So there's that.
We reach who we can, however we can. Even if one day our only way to share information is low tech like the founders of the US, passing out booklets, like Paine's Common Sense, and meeting in pubs and coffeehouses. Because, freedom!
Common sense, Rights of man, and other essential writings of Thomas Paine
https://archive.org/details/commonsenseright0000pain/page/n3/mode/2up
I've been cautious about Musk's takeover from the beginning. I never heralded this as necessarily a good thing. That said, Musk's own statements and actions have been all over the map and often self-contradictory. He's an erratic personality whose commitments and interests change often.
*Eccentric geniuses* have always needed stable partners to do the common-sense parts of innovation and business growth. As I say many times, people who think like Elon and Bill Gates et al can see far ahead but often not around the nearest corner.
He's a failure at the basic building block of a happy life. Many children but no solid family. He can buy his kids anything but a calm sensible father.
When Substack started, I'm sure the general public and even the social media tech world saw it as a kind of boring essay-posting site for every self-important nobody to launch their deathless words into the world.
It quickly became an essential conduit for all the stuff *they* didn't want anyone to share and examine and harness the brains of so many individuals who'd have no effect on their own but became a community one couldn't ignore. It went from Crackpot Central to the incubator and communicator of the best research possible, and *possible* was a dazzling actuality.
Its name, against all odds, is going to outshine Twitter and the five-year-old inside Elon ain't having it.
He's done those things to make it sweeter. Why work to develop alternative communication strategies outside narrative control platforms if you're content inside a sweetened up narrative control platform?
Disagree. Truth Social was new and growing. Timing of purchase was to kneecap that platform before it could stand up. Worked pretty good drawing back in users who were seriously looking at Truth.
Musk doesn't strike me as flaky. I don't know much about him, tend to give him the benefit of the doubt but also view him very guardedly.
Well yes--flaky people can be very dangerous when they've got an unusual intelligence and have a ton of money.
I’m a fairly regular twitter reader. I don’t post much, nor have I bought a blue check. It’s free. I suspect there are many thousands of people like me. When I read on substack those authors I choose to read, like this one, I pay for that privilege and do so happily. For a creator such at Tiabbi to quit twitter in a huff over this seems to b a bad business decision. No way would I have subscribed to his substack if I hadn’t seen his tweets first. Elon is running multiple and disparate businesses all over the world, often w competing interests. Why quit the one that reaches the most people?
Do you think using a word that rhymes with "spank" and means "a disreputable or sleazy person" is worthy of a 1 week suspension? Even though the platform didn't kick up it's usual warning "are you sure you want to tweet that?" before the tweet reply went live; a warning that those who regularly use colorful language have come to expect? I only speak for myself, but I doubt I'm the only one who often opts to change up my wording when challenged by that warning.
No warning, 1 week ban, happened to me yesterday. So much for stopping "outright silly things." I know my gripe will come across as petty to some, but it grinds my gears, especially after deciding to support twitter blue because I felt that what Musk was doing is important to online discourse and the republic.
Substack has some vulnerability as described in the linked artilce. We must all be cognizant of that, both writers and readers alike.
I only opened a twitter account when Steve Kirsch got reinstated and asked his readers to follow him there. I've never tweeted, although I have on occassion logged in to read tweets of people I followed. I MUCH prefer substack
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/substack-asks-writers-money-vc-funding-collapses?ref=biztoc.com
i have started experimenting with notes.
it's beta, small, needs feature work, etc. but looks like a basically good design.
it will be a good adjunct to substack, but a "twitter replacement"? no. it's a complement.
musk (as is often the case) has this wrong and is letting pettiness get in his way.
his claims about IP's etc are nonsense.
i spoke to someone who used to work with the twitter rate limiter and it would have done this automatically.
must appears to be making stuff up.
“After X actions of Y over Z minutes your request will no longer work (returning http 420, prob upgraded to 429 now). This prevents bots and DOS attacks.”
so, unless you have a license for the data, hard to see how this happened or how this would be the outcome.
this is war on a perceived competitor who is really a synergistic friend.
there is no future in walled gardens.
Twitter and its users have always been pathetic. If THIS is what it takes to make everyone realize that...
Better late than never, I guess.
Can I use it for free? Like twitter?
So Musk turns on Taibbi right after those hearings where the Democrats tried to scorch and smear Taibbi because there was no possible defense of the revealed collusion between Twitter and govt.
Like I been sayin'--a guy whose business model depends on close cordial cooperation with China ain't nobody's friend but governments. SpaceX contracts and EVs. Not exactly the type of genius I admire.
Substackers need to look at the big picture. Substack works because it's a direct pay model, there's no advertiser on the page who effectively controls content with their TOS. The risk here is not only banishment of links from outside (Twitter is just round 1), it's going to be the subscription money they will go after through the payment processors. "we don't allow people to say these things and you can keep your credit card processing". That's how they roll.
This is why Substack's partnership with Stripe is important. They also process payments for sites like Gumroad, and they obviously have a fairly high tolerance for the politically incorrect.
Unfortunately, these companies can turn on a dime if the wrong person is heading them. Paypal and gofundme were both unexpected and rapid change overs. :(
They do, and this is something I've researched directly and had first-hand experience with. My paid-membership blog, FreeTheAnimal.com, is highly politically incorrect (a 20-yr tradition, over 5,000 posts) and just generally incorrect.
I leave the toilet seat up.
Anyway, I use Stripe as my processor. Going fine for over a year and a half then suddenly, no warning, last Nov around Xgiving time... Account Under Review (and frozen, subscription payments, uncharged, stacking up). And nobody would tell me anything, and tech didn't know anything. Rather, they were like, "we'll look into it, get 'er right back up." Nothing happened, no word, zero reason for why it was under review.
It happened to be over a weekend and started on a Friday, so I don't know how much that had to do with it taking so long, but it was about Tuesday, I think, the review went away without notice, just as quickly as it was initiated.
I never got a single whisper as to what it was about (I've never had a payment dispute, chargeback, anything...).
I speculate that's their policy when dealing with any complaints about "incorrect" stuff such as I publish. Being a former Navy Officer, I do understand the "we can neither confirm nor deny" policy. It quells fire. You've got nothing to go on, either way.
So, conclusion...still a Stripe fan. Big fan.
I had a similar thing happen, when I was just setting up payment processing. I'm not sure what triggered it, but people at Stripe got in touch with me it was all sorted within 48 hours.
All it takes is one phone call from the banker capo and it's done. This is The Way (to paraphrase the Mandelorian).
I was off Twitter for a week and I don't miss it. I joined in 2015 just for the 2016 election and it had a lot of value then, I think. There was "real content" and Trump was hilarious. But now endlessly scrolling for something interesting, but not stupid, irrelevant, anxiety-producing or offensive isn't worth the effort anymore. I'm afraid to comment on anything because my innocuous joke about a goose got me banned for 24 hours, and my appeal was rejected, but my reports of "I hope you die" type of comments are ignored. If I reply to any big accounts on any of the "hot topics," I get subjected to "You're an idiot" troll abuse from the anime "people." I'm convinced 90% of the accounts are just gov't spy bots trying to brainwash me into thinking Biden is the greatest President of all time or else trap me into liking "the wrong thing" for later prosecution or surveillance. And the remaining accounts are probably people currently incarcerated using their limited library time to shitpost from jail.
They demoralize on purpose people who don’t follow the government narrative. Jikkyleaks uncovered a group in the UK that is definitely a government nudge program.
Musk's reaction to Substack is doubly odd coming from someone who is supposed to know a lot about business, as well as technology. Has the man never heard of cross-promotion? Anyone with even a tangential association with marketing is aware of this. It improves and increases the value of both brands.
exactly. can anyone really think, if substack disappeared tomorrow, twitter would have *more* users or engagement? the relationship among these sites is really complicated. they have different user bases and they don't function as direct competitors; content creators who do very well on one often struggle to get noticed on others.
I hate Twitter and always have. I didn’t have Twitter for years, then got an acct for my nonprofit when Elon bought it just for support. I never post tho and never go to it unless from a link here or somewhere else for one tweet. I’m perfectly happy to delete it again - I much SubStack to any social media and I don’t see it as “social media” (which is a good thing!)
That's exactly how I use Twitter. Otherwise I find it largely incomprehensible.
Same
There is definitely a pattern of Elon trying to refuse to “promote” competitive platforms on his own. So this particular block is intentional and like with Mastadon, may go away?
However, the overriding issue of censorship remains. Thank good ness you have our emails. My email platform Yahoo was even putting your posts and Igor’s in my spam folder during the heat of things and I’m thinking fo getting a proton account now.
Twitter is going to try and deboost you, particularly, for a variety of reasons. I watched all of this transpire with another website and blogger - The Conservative Treehouse. They deboosted and relegated him to never land on Twitter for ages. Then WordPress even forced him off their platform. He notices some patterns in the Uniparty that they don’t want people talking about.
Twitter will get censored like FB got censored in Europe. The german government will single you out Eugyppius, I hope you have all of your infrastructure in place the best you can. You spoke eloquently about Nordstream, Ukraine and the manufactured energy crisis and they won’t like that.
And there is a cycle on Twitter where as it gets closer to elections, the censorship gets much worse- see the Hunter laptop as one example. It starts ramping up about one year prior and at the 6 month mark it goes haywire with all sorts of accounts getting banned. They even did a trial run with Posobiec this last week- I’m sure they will block him too. With the DHS and FBI still having a back door access to Twitter to censor at will- this nonsense will continue until Elon finds a way to block that- I’m not even sure he can.
Definitely get yourself a Protonmail account. That is my primary service. I use my legacy Yahoo account as a spam bucket mostly. When a site requires an email address for no particular reason, I always give it the Yahoo address. I have very few emails of any interest to me that show up in Yahoo these days. 98% get deleted immediately. It's just a matter of going in to clear it out once a day, like cleaning the lint trap in the clothes dryer.
Possible add-on to: "nonsense will continue until Elon finds a way to block that- I’m not even sure he can."
Could read, "nonsense will continue until Elon finds a way to block that- I’m not even sure he can, or wants too."
I'm also a bit nervous about Notes becoming subject to algorithmic manipulation. We'll need to wait and see on that one, I guess.
I think the pettiest aspect of the Twitter brouhaha is redirecting all searches for 'Substack' to 'newsletter'. Just ... why? From a purely selfish perspective this annoys me, as I periodically look to see what people sharing my posts are saying about them.
I like Twitter and pay to support it. It’s great for tech news, OK for medical news. I like Substack more, and pay for a lot of authors, many of whom represent alternate viewpoints, and well thought out rebuttals or considerations of events I wouldn’t have thought of. Of the two, Substack is better, because the authors are paid, more coherent, and would otherwise never be heard in today’s media. Twitter has no payment, branding, or real account security for authors.
So, how has Substack escaped the censorship demons but not anyone else? Is it simply too young or maybe the subscription platform silos things enough where it's hard for the censors to prune data for wrong think. They have similar sandards of service to other sites, but seem to apply hem as loosely as possible.
Veering towards the opinion that the censors are ultimately just lazy, and reading a long-form 1500 word essay on a bad-think concept is a lot harder than going after a 50 word tweet.
a major part is the lack of advertisers, who are a major force for censorship. the direct subscription model circumvents this.
The censors are not human. AI can read 1500 words in a second.
this also important. video is most heavily censored thing out there. i think audio podcasts are probably the safest – stick anything you want in hour three of a four hour episode, ain't nobody got time for that. long form articles definitely more towards the audio end of things, and any site with paywalls will have a lot built-in protection.
Unlike contributors to “Twitter and YouTube, authors at Substack have direct access to their own readers; their work is not filtered or selectively promoted by opaque recommendation algorithms, which have stifled a lot of engagement on Twitter recently. “ you hit nail on head here . The uncensorability of private emails!!!! This is the key to freedom.
Sure it does . The Reply button . 😁
I need to thank Elon for alerting me to the upcoming Notes. I was unaware of it.
Musk is trying to play all sides with Twitter which as a businessman I respect but it’s not really working. He does the same thing with his satellites, first saying he’s shutting down Ukraine from using them because he doesn’t want to promote death or whatever bs. Then the truth comes out that he wants to get paid. Now I see his new generation of satellites are falling out of the sky and China is getting a satellite network ready that will checkmate him. He should be Trump’s running mate. They both deal in a lot of snake oil to adoring fans.
I don’t think people realize that SpaceX starlink satellites are a surveillance prison .
And they annoy astronomers and stargazers.
Yep. Bye bye stars.