Yes it's hard to be sure. If you inquire with Substack, I'll bet they'll say it's a glitch, and who knows if that's true. But at least you can force them to make you whole.
I was just reviewing your website and old posts. You've written quite a bit! Would you have any tips for pitching a story like this? Prior to posting it here, I sent i…
Yes it's hard to be sure. If you inquire with Substack, I'll bet they'll say it's a glitch, and who knows if that's true. But at least you can force them to make you whole.
I was just reviewing your website and old posts. You've written quite a bit! Would you have any tips for pitching a story like this? Prior to posting it here, I sent it to one outlet that doesn't have comment sections on their articles. I thought it might be a fit but I never heard back.
Hi! I just wanted to say thank you so much for bringing my shadow ban to my attention yesterday. Substack acknowledged I'd been flagged as spam in their system (I have no idea how that happened, given my very un-spam like use of the platform), but they're apparently in the process of un-shadow banning me.
Well done! And no problem. You're right it is kind of my thing now, but I don't catch it all. Platforms are always inventing new ways to do things like this, but those ways are often also discoverable. My aim is to help more people be on the look out for secret suppression.
Thank you for sharing the details. It appears you had a fruitful back and forth with an employee there! Way to stick to your guns. You definitely should have been notified about the flag, and such flags should be ever-present on all of your impacted content. However, that employee is wrong that secret suppression is not "standard 'best practice' ". It very much is accepted in the world of content moderation!
Cory Doctorow, friend of the EFF, cites the "Santa Clara Principles" in his Medium post "Como is Infosec" while criticizing secrecy. But the SCP endorse secrecy! They just word it carefully by providing "exceptions." So I'm not surprised Substack does it too. But there is no reason for keeping this secret, as you pointed out, not for bots nor trolls nor harassers; it never makes sense.
Everyone deserves consequences, both for their own sanity and others'. If I'm wrong about that, then someone can come debate me on it. I have not seen any public debate on that topic at all, and I've reviewed a lot of conferences, podcasts, and research that discusses content moderation. In other words, the secrecy is a huge secret itself.
It's a huge story, which I am incapable of delivering in whole, but one way to move the needle might be to interview people who've been impacted by censorship over various topics. For example, I've heard from people impacted by secret suppression over video games, ChatGPT (via another commenter on this post), gender, advocacy or criticism of political candidates, etc. Just telling a few of those stories might help more people relate to the issue. These all-encompassing posts I've previously attempted might feel too distant. But you're the writer, you would know more about that than me!
I absolutely think you're correct on all of that, and I agree that telling these stories is important. This issue needs more attention ASAP. If you hadn't noticed my invisibility, I would have just been writing into the void forever and wondering why no one ever interacted with my work. Thank you. 🙏🏼
The ramifications of secretly silencing legitimate speech, whether it's intentional censorship or accidental through automation, are huge and scary.
I think interviews with people that have been silenced would be an incredible way to get the message out there. Would you ever be willing to grant an interview as an expert (developing Reveddit, etc.) in articles by others, as well? I think that could be a good first step too.
Awesome! I'll get in touch if I'm able to find a home for a story about this. You'd be a great person to talk about it -- Reveddit was brilliant. It's mind-blowing how serious this is.
Jewish Loot and Neglected Fruit: How the Mainstream Right Serves Jews and Betrays Whites . . .
“Low-hanging fruit!” cry deluded right-wingers all over the West. “Why doesn’t my favored party on the mainstream right pluck that fruit and defeat the left?” Well, they’ve been crying that for decades and will still be crying it when the left pack them off to a slave-labor camp or an organic gas-chamber. Some of those right-wingers are too stupid to see the truth; some are too frightened to admit it. Their favored party on the mainstream right doesn’t pluck the low-hanging fruit because it doesn’t want to defeat the left. And it doesn’t want to defeat the left because it is the left. That is, it’s financed and controlled by Jews who support the left and its anti-White, anti-Christian, anti-Western agenda.
Thank you! I'll definitely reach out to Substack tomorrow and get to the bottom of this. I'm pretty floored by the whole thing; I never expected them to pull this weirdness.
And absolutely! Pitching stories about certain subjects can be super frustrating (for example, covering tech privacy issues has been weirdly challenging since 2020). There's definitely some bizarre warm fuzzy feelings toward government censorship among the media crowd lately, so I think being aware of that will be helpful so you don't take any rejections/silences too personally. If you get rejected a few times, don't lose heart, just keep pitching and keep on writing.
First, I recommend targeting the right publications. OneZero, the Guardian, Motherboard, MIT Technology Review, etc. might be good options to try. (Visit www.wheretopitch.com for more ideas of who to pitch based on your core topic, and resources on how to contact outlets.)
![[Removed]: The Real Censorship is Secret Suppression](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_80,h_80,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F13b73319-822c-48da-a9ac-1674f4c9a722_127x127.png)
![[Removed]: The Real Censorship is Secret Suppression](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/e_trim:10:white/e_trim:10:transparent/h_72,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4e3bd729-0bba-433a-b935-5a4b52a1ea7b_1278x337.png)
Yes it's hard to be sure. If you inquire with Substack, I'll bet they'll say it's a glitch, and who knows if that's true. But at least you can force them to make you whole.
I was just reviewing your website and old posts. You've written quite a bit! Would you have any tips for pitching a story like this? Prior to posting it here, I sent it to one outlet that doesn't have comment sections on their articles. I thought it might be a fit but I never heard back.
Hi! I just wanted to say thank you so much for bringing my shadow ban to my attention yesterday. Substack acknowledged I'd been flagged as spam in their system (I have no idea how that happened, given my very un-spam like use of the platform), but they're apparently in the process of un-shadow banning me.
I thought you might like to see their response (and my spirited debate with them), since it's your specialty: https://erinmariemiller.substack.com/p/an-important-note-to-subscribers/comment/21227318?r=3ahc1&utm_medium=ios
Thank you, again!
Sorry, I misread his position. I see he is insisting that secrecy IS best practice. I'll respond over there.
Well done! And no problem. You're right it is kind of my thing now, but I don't catch it all. Platforms are always inventing new ways to do things like this, but those ways are often also discoverable. My aim is to help more people be on the look out for secret suppression.
Thank you for sharing the details. It appears you had a fruitful back and forth with an employee there! Way to stick to your guns. You definitely should have been notified about the flag, and such flags should be ever-present on all of your impacted content. However, that employee is wrong that secret suppression is not "standard 'best practice' ". It very much is accepted in the world of content moderation!
Cory Doctorow, friend of the EFF, cites the "Santa Clara Principles" in his Medium post "Como is Infosec" while criticizing secrecy. But the SCP endorse secrecy! They just word it carefully by providing "exceptions." So I'm not surprised Substack does it too. But there is no reason for keeping this secret, as you pointed out, not for bots nor trolls nor harassers; it never makes sense.
Everyone deserves consequences, both for their own sanity and others'. If I'm wrong about that, then someone can come debate me on it. I have not seen any public debate on that topic at all, and I've reviewed a lot of conferences, podcasts, and research that discusses content moderation. In other words, the secrecy is a huge secret itself.
It's a huge story, which I am incapable of delivering in whole, but one way to move the needle might be to interview people who've been impacted by censorship over various topics. For example, I've heard from people impacted by secret suppression over video games, ChatGPT (via another commenter on this post), gender, advocacy or criticism of political candidates, etc. Just telling a few of those stories might help more people relate to the issue. These all-encompassing posts I've previously attempted might feel too distant. But you're the writer, you would know more about that than me!
I absolutely think you're correct on all of that, and I agree that telling these stories is important. This issue needs more attention ASAP. If you hadn't noticed my invisibility, I would have just been writing into the void forever and wondering why no one ever interacted with my work. Thank you. 🙏🏼
The ramifications of secretly silencing legitimate speech, whether it's intentional censorship or accidental through automation, are huge and scary.
I think interviews with people that have been silenced would be an incredible way to get the message out there. Would you ever be willing to grant an interview as an expert (developing Reveddit, etc.) in articles by others, as well? I think that could be a good first step too.
I sure would, thanks! I once declined to do so in the past, but that was because I wasn't ready. Now I am as ready as I'll ever be before trying.
Awesome! I'll get in touch if I'm able to find a home for a story about this. You'd be a great person to talk about it -- Reveddit was brilliant. It's mind-blowing how serious this is.
Jewish Loot and Neglected Fruit: How the Mainstream Right Serves Jews and Betrays Whites . . .
“Low-hanging fruit!” cry deluded right-wingers all over the West. “Why doesn’t my favored party on the mainstream right pluck that fruit and defeat the left?” Well, they’ve been crying that for decades and will still be crying it when the left pack them off to a slave-labor camp or an organic gas-chamber. Some of those right-wingers are too stupid to see the truth; some are too frightened to admit it. Their favored party on the mainstream right doesn’t pluck the low-hanging fruit because it doesn’t want to defeat the left. And it doesn’t want to defeat the left because it is the left. That is, it’s financed and controlled by Jews who support the left and its anti-White, anti-Christian, anti-Western agenda.
https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2022/03/25/jewish-loot-and-neglected-fruit-how-the-mainstream-right-serves-jews-and-betrays-whites/
Thank you! I'll definitely reach out to Substack tomorrow and get to the bottom of this. I'm pretty floored by the whole thing; I never expected them to pull this weirdness.
And absolutely! Pitching stories about certain subjects can be super frustrating (for example, covering tech privacy issues has been weirdly challenging since 2020). There's definitely some bizarre warm fuzzy feelings toward government censorship among the media crowd lately, so I think being aware of that will be helpful so you don't take any rejections/silences too personally. If you get rejected a few times, don't lose heart, just keep pitching and keep on writing.
First, I recommend targeting the right publications. OneZero, the Guardian, Motherboard, MIT Technology Review, etc. might be good options to try. (Visit www.wheretopitch.com for more ideas of who to pitch based on your core topic, and resources on how to contact outlets.)
Finally, here's an excellent guide to writing a strong pitch, written by a former Nylon editor I freelanced for years ago: https://www.keepcalmandchiffon.com/blog/11/28/how-to-pitch-and-get-published
Wishing you the best of luck!! :)