Don't Look Up....
Is Elon Musk about to thoroughly #$%@ up Substack as well?
There was a moment of extreme existential panic I experienced when I got a Facebook message from fellow Substack writer Stacey Eskelin. Normally a pretty calm sort, Stacey’s message was brief- “Jack, did you fucking see this?”
I may check Facebook every 3-5 days or so, and because of this, I’d missed her panicked missive, but I followed the link to a Yahoo! News report, and there was the headline in all its stomach-churning glory:
OK, WTF?? AYFKM??? ITFR??? I could only think in acronyms for a moment or two as I tried to process the headline as I tried to keep my head from exploding.
Surely, this had to be a joke. After spending $44 BILLION on Twitter and being well on his way to pissing most of that away, he’s saying he’s “open” to buying Substack?
WTactualF??
The abject panic I felt in that moment would be impossible to describe adequately. I immediately saw everything I’ve accomplished over the past almost two years turning to shit as Musk turns a very good publishing platform into yet another Right-wing shit hole dedicated to hate speech, racism, homophobia, and misogyny.
Capitalismo o muerto!!
Elon Musk said he's "open to the idea" of buying publishing platform Substack after a Twitter user said doing so would give him control over the "narrative layer" of the internet.
Musk was responding to a thread started by conservative commentator Dave Rubin who alleged that YouTube and Google's "manipulation for political purposes is FAR worse than Twitter's."
Hmm…I wonder if Rubin stopped to consider that even before Musk took over Twitter, the platform’s algorithm favored Conservative voices. Nah, NEVER let the truth get in the way of a perfectly good conspiracy theory.
I’ve already left Twitter for Mastodon because Elon Musk has devolved the bird site into a cesspool that welcomes racists, misogynists, homophobes, Islamophobes, Nazis, and all manner of haters. (And, full disclosure, since I was permanently suspended in April. Stupid story. Not going to revisit it.) There are still decent people hanging on, but their days are numbered. Mastodon is quickly becoming the new refuge for those who want a Twitter-like site without the assholes and trolls.
But Substack? I promise you that the day Elon Musk takes control is the day I say goodbye. I want no part of anything he’s involved in. His Teslas have become little more than fouSubstackd MAGA hats. Twitter? Well, I’ve already broken that down. And I have no doubt he’d do the same to Substack.
He’d destroy what, in its curSubstackm, already works beautifully for writers.
Everything Musk, like Donald Trump (whom he’s increasingly coming to resemble), touches turns to shit, and I’m not about to play a part in anything he owns. I love being a part of Substack. For what I do and how I do it, it’s virtually perfect, just as it is. Sure, there are features I’d love to see, and in time I suspect that will haSubstackwever, the functionality is excellent, and I don’t have to fuss over the IT aspect of things like I did with WordPress. That in and of itself is a godsend. I can write, full stop. I don’t have to do anything else…and I love that about Substack.
Hours earlier, part two of the so-called "Twitter Files" was released by conservative journalist Bari Weiss. The "Twitter Files" purport to expose "free speech suppression," on the platform.
Weiss wrote that the new "investigation," showed that Twitter employees did "build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics—all in secret, without informing users."
Weiss referred to a tool called "visibility filtering," which she said enabled staff to suppress what kind of content users were able to see and interact with.
Twitter "used VF to block searches of individual users; to limit the scope of a particular tweet's discoverability; to block select users' posts from ever appearing on the 'trending' page; and from inclusion in hashtag searches," Weiss said.
Although Weiss claimed that the content of the Twitter Files was "secret" information, much of the information she shared was already publicly known to some extent. For instance, Twitter announced in 2018 that it would hide certain tweets that "detract" from conversation on the platform, the Washington Post's Will Oremus reported.
Musk has also endorsed this policy himself saying just last week: "Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of reach. Negativity should & will get less reach than positivity."
Or, in Musk-speak, Conservative speech will get more reach than Liberal speech, which is what’s happening at Twitter. For someone who started his tenure at the platform claiming to be a “free speech absolutist,” that “free speech” has been decidedly subject to his whims.
This is what happens whSubstackial media platform dedicated to free speech is owned by a single individual with an agenda who’s concept of “free speech” is anything but “free.”
Just post a tweet criticizing Musk and watch what happens, eh? Twitter has been deleting- not just suspending- accounts that criticize Musk. So much for “free speech absolutism,” eh?
Welcome to Twitter’s Brave New World Order.
A little online research showed me that, at least so far, Musk is “open” to buying Substack or another media company to enhance Twitter’s capabilities. That’s not exactly promising or comforting, but neither is it a pronouncement of it being an imminent event.
I think Musk was “spitballing” in response to a question. I don’t believe his response represent a fully formed plan, or even the beginnings of one. That’s not to say it couldn’t happen, of course, but I don’t know that now is the time to panic and scramble to battle stations.
With that in mind, I’m going to keep my powder dry, but to senior management at Substack I’ll say only this:
The day you sell to Elon Musk is the day I close up shop and head off in search of different (if not greener) pastures. You may not miss my as yet not very large corner of your platform, but I’ll wager I’m not the only one feeling this way. So, please accept a word to the wise- proceed with caution. You're running the risk of burning down a very good thing.
Consider yourself warned.
This would seriously suck the whale wanker. Yours and Stacey's are not the only Substack accounts that I follow.
By the bye, I think you misspelled "spitballing": should be an "h", not a "p".
Right there with you, brother. I will be SO outta here, even though it will hurt, even though it will kill me. We won't have a choice. Why? Because Musk will fire half the staff, just like he did with Twitter, and start selling off the parts like a disemboweled farm animal, a leg here, intestines there. No, thanks. I'm not sticking around for the abuse. And I'm NOT putting money in that asshole's pocket.