Why Substack is stupid to make all of the same mistakes of its ideological predecessors and why getting uppity with me (or anyone else) won't fix that problem
I too am enjoying my Substack experience (even though my Notes posts keep disappearing). What's more is I am finding hope the Truth and multiple sides of it can find reasonable discourse on the net. You bring up some troubling points and I think you may be on to something. Are these softball interviews with power-elite players conditions of them bringing their readers to Substack? Are they being treated with kid gloves because they are promising future investment in Substack? These would be interesting questions for @Chris Best
This is what people theorized in the absence of better answers. That Substack is leveraging their own brand to solicit new traffic through the pre-standing audiences of types like Taylor Lorenz, in the hopes of attracting them to stick around. I’m not sure it worked in the case of Ms Lorenz 🤷♂️
Caveat emptor: there is literally zero way anyone would know how the platform had been or might be co-opted by the state, deep state, vested/specialist interests, and/or what is now referred to as the censorship industrial complex, and I've seen nothing from substack addressing any of these issues explicitly.
Make no mistake, the above does not start and end with censorship. What is proven time and again is that state level actors have penetrated every media outlet and in clearly many cases, they are actively controlling narrative through them. Yet this phenomenon is not fully exposed, and it's exposure runs decades behind the actual level of state capability and will (see operation mockingbird etc). substance is an obvious platform to use to identify dissident voices because those anonymous dissident voices will commit deal in long form, which is in many ways more valuable "Intel" that lots of randoms tweeting a few hundred characters off the cuff crap.
Simultaneously, the agenda, goals and claimed actions by any platform owners cannot be fully known or trusted (see musk @ Twitter for recent obvious example).
Penetrate substack's IT department and acquire the identity of every one of its writers. Sit back and watch the influence and impact of those writers. Take out the ones you evaluate as high on the threat/risk-reward spectrum, be they anonymous or otherwise.
Per my linked article, substack already uses and pushes a largely junk metric "email opens" as the headline incentivising metric for writers, yet the metric is crap when you test it and dig in to what it really means and how it's triggered. That's a form of manipulation. Instead, full explanation of all the metrics should be given, not the thin explanation provided. With that knowledge, writers can take action in their articles to improve the integrity of that metric using certain techniques.
substack wants up to monetise your stack so it can get paid, obviously. But in return, there's zero assurance of a stance that is and shall remain anti establishment, anti censorship, and actively anti-penetration by such interests.
It's time substack management made explicit statements about it's position and also state clearly HOW it will actively defend that position and the actions it will take.
This should literally take the form of, for example:
Substack will never employ any former or current employee or agent of state law enforcement, intelligence, security or military entity and will do its utmost to identify such individuals as a fundamental action in its recruitment and employment process.
And/or substack will declare transparently:
- the number of monthly contacts it receives from the state with regard to content and user base queries that could amount to content/output/user identity control in vein to that seen in Twitter Files etc
- the number of agents it ever identifies at any point in its employ should the above point fail or should substack choose to employ such persons
substack will actively structure itself legally, physically and digitally to maximally prevent any entity exercising internal or external control over the platform for the reasons of censorship, content control or user identification and control.
Where substack is legally forced/compelled to act at a state's instruction, it will publicly declare it has done so and how, up to the maximal legal limit of such an explanation e.g. "the DHS forced us under [LAW] to reveal the user identity of [USER] and instructed us to provide all digital access records for them, and is actively monitoring that account etc.
Etc etc
Rest assured, without these forms of explicit commitment to users by platforms, no one should trust any platform or its rhetoric about anything. All platforms are, by default, bricks in the digital panopticon's wall, until you now they aren't. And you will NEVER know 100% that any or all aren't, because that's the nature of power, money and technology.
Early on, I read a few things on a company newsletter, on Substack. I saw how the founder and his cohort think, right at that point. I saw they had the same business-orientation one always sees in any of these sorts of companies. So, I do not believe Substack is and different. They, like all the others, are mostly about money and business. What I am wondering is this. Is genuine communication (e.g. as Thic Nat Hahn would have it) even possible? For example. I have a little group of me and four other persons (should I give names? I don't think I should) who (up until this week anyhow - where are you guys?) always comment on my pieces and I likewise. (One, a great writer, Libo Soural, is from Nicaragua). If I got a few more friends like them, though, how would we keep up with one another? What I am doing is strictly under the radar. I refuse to pay (I eat out of garbage cans. 100% of my money goes to rent, laundry and beer and I congratulate myself for a "low carbon footprint" so there). None of my group requires it. Am I looking for the impossible? I am constantly being denied access to different paywall type sites. I rather think the whole I-net should be free! (And... what is my 'persona' going to end up being? Here, I sound quirky or weird. I am must a person; and so, I HOPE I never get a Substack "persona.")
I just got another 'like' on this comment. I am still engaged here on Substack. I think it is a real challenge and worth working with. I am perfectly happy to live under the Substack net. We need to work with what we have rather than continually running to another website, like at the Kino's copy center when a computer does not work and they just say "why don't you switch to another computer?" Well no. Why is a whole big fancy piece of technology not functioning? For example, we live under one government. YOu cannot run. You have to fix the one you have. That is what democracy is all about. Capitalism has a whole different set of features. Of course there are salient differences. But what both have in come is: if the system is developing problems you fix the system. You don't try to run away. (Unless it is to socialism of course! Just kidding. You do not need to do that either. Really.)
“That stupid email from your cousin that you forgot to reply to and now you can't bring your fiancée to the company picnic.”
❓❓❓
I can’t figure out the bridge between the two halves of this sentence, but I feel there’s an interesting story here....
You and your cousin work at the same job, he’s I. HR, you aren’t 😁
Should mention I reworded that to avoid any confusion, it wasn’t making sense without an answer so it was in need of revision.
I too am enjoying my Substack experience (even though my Notes posts keep disappearing). What's more is I am finding hope the Truth and multiple sides of it can find reasonable discourse on the net. You bring up some troubling points and I think you may be on to something. Are these softball interviews with power-elite players conditions of them bringing their readers to Substack? Are they being treated with kid gloves because they are promising future investment in Substack? These would be interesting questions for @Chris Best
This is what people theorized in the absence of better answers. That Substack is leveraging their own brand to solicit new traffic through the pre-standing audiences of types like Taylor Lorenz, in the hopes of attracting them to stick around. I’m not sure it worked in the case of Ms Lorenz 🤷♂️
Appreciate your observations re substack. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on my observations/concerns about the platform, please:
https://veryslowthinking.substack.com/p/substacks-place-in-the-fourth-industrial?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2FFourth%2520industrial&utm_medium=reader2
Caveat emptor: there is literally zero way anyone would know how the platform had been or might be co-opted by the state, deep state, vested/specialist interests, and/or what is now referred to as the censorship industrial complex, and I've seen nothing from substack addressing any of these issues explicitly.
Make no mistake, the above does not start and end with censorship. What is proven time and again is that state level actors have penetrated every media outlet and in clearly many cases, they are actively controlling narrative through them. Yet this phenomenon is not fully exposed, and it's exposure runs decades behind the actual level of state capability and will (see operation mockingbird etc). substance is an obvious platform to use to identify dissident voices because those anonymous dissident voices will commit deal in long form, which is in many ways more valuable "Intel" that lots of randoms tweeting a few hundred characters off the cuff crap.
Simultaneously, the agenda, goals and claimed actions by any platform owners cannot be fully known or trusted (see musk @ Twitter for recent obvious example).
Penetrate substack's IT department and acquire the identity of every one of its writers. Sit back and watch the influence and impact of those writers. Take out the ones you evaluate as high on the threat/risk-reward spectrum, be they anonymous or otherwise.
Per my linked article, substack already uses and pushes a largely junk metric "email opens" as the headline incentivising metric for writers, yet the metric is crap when you test it and dig in to what it really means and how it's triggered. That's a form of manipulation. Instead, full explanation of all the metrics should be given, not the thin explanation provided. With that knowledge, writers can take action in their articles to improve the integrity of that metric using certain techniques.
substack wants up to monetise your stack so it can get paid, obviously. But in return, there's zero assurance of a stance that is and shall remain anti establishment, anti censorship, and actively anti-penetration by such interests.
It's time substack management made explicit statements about it's position and also state clearly HOW it will actively defend that position and the actions it will take.
This should literally take the form of, for example:
Substack will never employ any former or current employee or agent of state law enforcement, intelligence, security or military entity and will do its utmost to identify such individuals as a fundamental action in its recruitment and employment process.
And/or substack will declare transparently:
- the number of monthly contacts it receives from the state with regard to content and user base queries that could amount to content/output/user identity control in vein to that seen in Twitter Files etc
- the number of agents it ever identifies at any point in its employ should the above point fail or should substack choose to employ such persons
substack will actively structure itself legally, physically and digitally to maximally prevent any entity exercising internal or external control over the platform for the reasons of censorship, content control or user identification and control.
Where substack is legally forced/compelled to act at a state's instruction, it will publicly declare it has done so and how, up to the maximal legal limit of such an explanation e.g. "the DHS forced us under [LAW] to reveal the user identity of [USER] and instructed us to provide all digital access records for them, and is actively monitoring that account etc.
Etc etc
Rest assured, without these forms of explicit commitment to users by platforms, no one should trust any platform or its rhetoric about anything. All platforms are, by default, bricks in the digital panopticon's wall, until you now they aren't. And you will NEVER know 100% that any or all aren't, because that's the nature of power, money and technology.
https://veryslowthinking.substack.com/p/perception-01-twitter-files?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2FMusk&utm_medium=reader2
https://veryslowthinking.substack.com/p/perception-03-musks-twitter?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2FMusk&utm_medium=reader2
https://veryslowthinking.substack.com/p/carlson-and-musk-twuckered-up?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2FMusk&utm_medium=reader2
PS please forgive autocorrect errors above
Early on, I read a few things on a company newsletter, on Substack. I saw how the founder and his cohort think, right at that point. I saw they had the same business-orientation one always sees in any of these sorts of companies. So, I do not believe Substack is and different. They, like all the others, are mostly about money and business. What I am wondering is this. Is genuine communication (e.g. as Thic Nat Hahn would have it) even possible? For example. I have a little group of me and four other persons (should I give names? I don't think I should) who (up until this week anyhow - where are you guys?) always comment on my pieces and I likewise. (One, a great writer, Libo Soural, is from Nicaragua). If I got a few more friends like them, though, how would we keep up with one another? What I am doing is strictly under the radar. I refuse to pay (I eat out of garbage cans. 100% of my money goes to rent, laundry and beer and I congratulate myself for a "low carbon footprint" so there). None of my group requires it. Am I looking for the impossible? I am constantly being denied access to different paywall type sites. I rather think the whole I-net should be free! (And... what is my 'persona' going to end up being? Here, I sound quirky or weird. I am must a person; and so, I HOPE I never get a Substack "persona.")
I just got another 'like' on this comment. I am still engaged here on Substack. I think it is a real challenge and worth working with. I am perfectly happy to live under the Substack net. We need to work with what we have rather than continually running to another website, like at the Kino's copy center when a computer does not work and they just say "why don't you switch to another computer?" Well no. Why is a whole big fancy piece of technology not functioning? For example, we live under one government. YOu cannot run. You have to fix the one you have. That is what democracy is all about. Capitalism has a whole different set of features. Of course there are salient differences. But what both have in come is: if the system is developing problems you fix the system. You don't try to run away. (Unless it is to socialism of course! Just kidding. You do not need to do that either. Really.)