Thanks for discussing this so clearly. I've seen the references to Tate and freedom of speech and not taken the time to look into it. There's so much bullshit going on these days and only so much energy to pay attention to it all.
I agree with you about Tate.
We all live with limits on our freedom of speech: we can't make public calls for violence or assassination, we can't joke about carrying bombs in airports, we can't yell "Fire!" for fun in a crowded theater. It's simply part of living in a shared society.
Freedom of speech is free until someone says something dangerous to others.
And I would be *extremely* surprised if Tate has not yet said something dangerous to others on his substack account. The minute he does--or did--that account should be shut down and Tate banned from the platform.
I started to see behind the mask when the mainstreamers came chasing their spot. They buried all the small voices like mine wanting to contribute to just be part of the community. I gave up and now just comment and support voices who haven’t given up. I predict Substack will run its course like any novelty and when it burns out something shiny and new will replace it.
Substack started as a venue for serious writers. It claimed equal exposure for all and no algorithm.
But as it grew, it realised it could make more money by selectively promoting lucrative accounts and controlling what viewers read, ie an algorithm.
It began to look more like Fb and IG, so far without the ads. They will likely appear as the medium grows, then the videos as it slowly transforms into tik tok.
All sm has followed this pathway. It’s a combination of greed on their part and the stupidity of much of the human race.
Wow, so spot on. Why is Substack boosting him? Not necessarily because they manually picked him—but because their system + business model + moderation philosophy all point in the same direction, and they’re choosing not to counteract it.
Gerald, I am not clear about what specific actions you want Substack to take.
You write that "Tate’s month-old Substack profile shows more than 1.1 million subscribers and a top spot on the platform’s new-bestseller rankings." You do not say that Substack has promoted Tate in any other way.
Those "new bestseller" rankings (which I had never before seen or heard of) are hard to understand. Currently Tate is #6, while #5 is @insaguilar, a Spanish-language stack with 611 subscribers. So that's a very weird algorithm that's producing those rankings. Yeah, Substack should tweak it.
What else do you think Substack should do?
I (reluctantly) looked at some of Tate's postings (ones that are not behind the paywall), and saw nothing that would come remotely close to violating Substack's guidelines. Of course I don't know what's behind the paywall.
So, once again, please tell us what specific actions you want Substack to take.
Don’t ban him. But at the very least de-amplify him. Remove him from charts, stop recommending him, enforce harassment rules aggressively, and protect other writers from the audience he brings. Free speech does not require platform promotion.
Once again: the ONLY "recommendation" or "amplification" or "promotion" that Substack has given to Tate that you have cited is his current presence on the "new bestseller" rankings. Are there others?
As an experiment, I went to the substack home page with a clean, no-history, no-cookies browser, did not log in, and no rankings of any kind were presented, and nothing mentioning Tate in any way.
I think it would be good if Substack understood their algorithms better, and did not use bot-driven subscriber numbers as a metric (which certainly seems likely in Tate's case). I'm much more leery of them deciding who to shadow ban on the basis of content of speech that does not violate ToS. We've had way too much of that on other platforms already.
🎯
Thanks for discussing this so clearly. I've seen the references to Tate and freedom of speech and not taken the time to look into it. There's so much bullshit going on these days and only so much energy to pay attention to it all.
I agree with you about Tate.
We all live with limits on our freedom of speech: we can't make public calls for violence or assassination, we can't joke about carrying bombs in airports, we can't yell "Fire!" for fun in a crowded theater. It's simply part of living in a shared society.
Freedom of speech is free until someone says something dangerous to others.
And I would be *extremely* surprised if Tate has not yet said something dangerous to others on his substack account. The minute he does--or did--that account should be shut down and Tate banned from the platform.
Wow. This is troubling. It would be like the NYT or WaPo giving him a weekly column, all for click bait. Dirty money imo.
Thank you Gerald.
I started to see behind the mask when the mainstreamers came chasing their spot. They buried all the small voices like mine wanting to contribute to just be part of the community. I gave up and now just comment and support voices who haven’t given up. I predict Substack will run its course like any novelty and when it burns out something shiny and new will replace it.
It was inevitable.
Substack started as a venue for serious writers. It claimed equal exposure for all and no algorithm.
But as it grew, it realised it could make more money by selectively promoting lucrative accounts and controlling what viewers read, ie an algorithm.
It began to look more like Fb and IG, so far without the ads. They will likely appear as the medium grows, then the videos as it slowly transforms into tik tok.
All sm has followed this pathway. It’s a combination of greed on their part and the stupidity of much of the human race.
Money. Exactly.
I forget who Andrew Tate is between complaints about him. Pretty odious fellow. Thank you, as always, Gerald Posner, for speaking out.
Wow, so spot on. Why is Substack boosting him? Not necessarily because they manually picked him—but because their system + business model + moderation philosophy all point in the same direction, and they’re choosing not to counteract it.
Say it ain't so, Substack! Say it ain't so!
I guess this is the adult whining thread?
Weak and pathetic.
Who decides what's worthy? What will you do when the censors come for you? One doesn't have to endorse Tate to see that point.
Gerald, I am not clear about what specific actions you want Substack to take.
You write that "Tate’s month-old Substack profile shows more than 1.1 million subscribers and a top spot on the platform’s new-bestseller rankings." You do not say that Substack has promoted Tate in any other way.
Those "new bestseller" rankings (which I had never before seen or heard of) are hard to understand. Currently Tate is #6, while #5 is @insaguilar, a Spanish-language stack with 611 subscribers. So that's a very weird algorithm that's producing those rankings. Yeah, Substack should tweak it.
What else do you think Substack should do?
I (reluctantly) looked at some of Tate's postings (ones that are not behind the paywall), and saw nothing that would come remotely close to violating Substack's guidelines. Of course I don't know what's behind the paywall.
So, once again, please tell us what specific actions you want Substack to take.
Don’t ban him. But at the very least de-amplify him. Remove him from charts, stop recommending him, enforce harassment rules aggressively, and protect other writers from the audience he brings. Free speech does not require platform promotion.
Once again: the ONLY "recommendation" or "amplification" or "promotion" that Substack has given to Tate that you have cited is his current presence on the "new bestseller" rankings. Are there others?
As an experiment, I went to the substack home page with a clean, no-history, no-cookies browser, did not log in, and no rankings of any kind were presented, and nothing mentioning Tate in any way.
I think it would be good if Substack understood their algorithms better, and did not use bot-driven subscriber numbers as a metric (which certainly seems likely in Tate's case). I'm much more leery of them deciding who to shadow ban on the basis of content of speech that does not violate ToS. We've had way too much of that on other platforms already.
How does one register a complaint? Can you send a link?