Your claim that the site is “promoting content” of Nazis such as Richard Hanania is dubious. Providing information enumerating the subscribers of various substacks is not "promoting", it is sharing accurate data.
Substack's success has nothing to do with alleged promotion of Nazis and IMO the site's minimal editorial control is a big part of its appeal. If I am wrong the market will self-correct.
I'm pleased that content creators who don't feel safe at Substack are speaking out and may choose to barter their wares however they see fit. You have many options.
I'm going to disagree with you on the issue of promotion. A profile of a Substack author isn't scalable, so when Substack's ownership chooses to prominently feature and profile one of their authors, that's promotion by any definition you care to offer. Because it's something they can only do for a few, there has to be some kind of criteria that they have for doing so, just like any other publisher or media outlet. Fresh Air on NPR has a system for deciding who Terry Gross is going to interview, for example. You can make those selections strictly based on circulation numbers real and possible--a print publisher might decide to spend heavily on promotion and advertising for an author that they think *could* become very big, or on one who is already big just to be sure their readers know there's a new book out. You can do it based on who you think is a good profile--Fresh Air's producers generally seem to have a sense of who might give a lively interview. You can do it because you think the subject matter the promoted author works with is interesting or unusual. Or you can do it because you think the promoted author is "good for the brand".
But a profile is a promotion. It's a bad look when a profile creator doesn't seem to know the full range of the work of the author they're promoting. If I were promoting the writing of the education historian Diane Ravitch and I was unaware of her major shift from promoting No Child Left Behind and school choice to condemning those policies, I would at least be missing a chance for an interesting conversation (and underselling the force of her work after that shift). But if Ravitch were essentially trying to erase or obscure that earlier history (she is in fact quite willing to talk about it) then I would also be helping her to do that by not mentioning it--which might be a problem.
Algorithmic forms of promotion is more scalable and theoretically can "provide information" in the sense that you mean. But if you think algorithmic systems for recommending, highlighting, etc. content in a large platform are simply objective forms of "accurate data", you're not really paying close attention to how they work.
You might be right that the "market will self-correct" if your evaluation is wrong. If you like the site as it is, you might not like that outcome. Parler, TruthSocial and increasingly X are all out there as platforms that might be closer to a full "market correction" in that sense--and you can get a pretty clear picture from them of what that's like.
In reply to your statement "But if you think algorithmic systems...are simply objective forms of "accurate data", you're not really paying close attention to how they work."
Obviously if one would examine the algorithm and have the expertise to analyze it they would discover "how they work". I haven't created algorithms professionally since the 1990's but if the code is available let's take a look at it. Have you analyzed the Substack "feature and profile" algorithmic process? Have you requested access to the code and process? Have you been denied access? f you will make the effort to get it and share it with me we can clear the matter quite easily. The code doesn't lie.
I think folks have been asking them to talk about how their algorithm sorts prominence or attention in Notes and elsewhere on the platform and other than acknowledging that there IS one (which is obvious, there has to be, and nobody would argue they could do without such a thing) they've declined to talk about it further. As is the norm generally in social media--I'm not sure why you think that one merely asks for underlying code on a platform like this one and expects to receive it. That hasn't been the case in a long time, perhaps since when you were creating algorithms professionally. They either choose to be (relatively) transparent about how they recommend and weight content or they don't.
Do you "think folks have been asking" or are you able to cite instances of the requests? As you've previously noted Substack does not follow the "norm generally in social media". I would be disappointed if Substack is stonewalling on this issue. I'll look into it and document any conversations generated.
Your claim that the site is “promoting content” of Nazis such as Richard Hanania is dubious. Providing information enumerating the subscribers of various substacks is not "promoting", it is sharing accurate data.
Substack's success has nothing to do with alleged promotion of Nazis and IMO the site's minimal editorial control is a big part of its appeal. If I am wrong the market will self-correct.
I'm pleased that content creators who don't feel safe at Substack are speaking out and may choose to barter their wares however they see fit. You have many options.
I'm going to disagree with you on the issue of promotion. A profile of a Substack author isn't scalable, so when Substack's ownership chooses to prominently feature and profile one of their authors, that's promotion by any definition you care to offer. Because it's something they can only do for a few, there has to be some kind of criteria that they have for doing so, just like any other publisher or media outlet. Fresh Air on NPR has a system for deciding who Terry Gross is going to interview, for example. You can make those selections strictly based on circulation numbers real and possible--a print publisher might decide to spend heavily on promotion and advertising for an author that they think *could* become very big, or on one who is already big just to be sure their readers know there's a new book out. You can do it based on who you think is a good profile--Fresh Air's producers generally seem to have a sense of who might give a lively interview. You can do it because you think the subject matter the promoted author works with is interesting or unusual. Or you can do it because you think the promoted author is "good for the brand".
But a profile is a promotion. It's a bad look when a profile creator doesn't seem to know the full range of the work of the author they're promoting. If I were promoting the writing of the education historian Diane Ravitch and I was unaware of her major shift from promoting No Child Left Behind and school choice to condemning those policies, I would at least be missing a chance for an interesting conversation (and underselling the force of her work after that shift). But if Ravitch were essentially trying to erase or obscure that earlier history (she is in fact quite willing to talk about it) then I would also be helping her to do that by not mentioning it--which might be a problem.
Algorithmic forms of promotion is more scalable and theoretically can "provide information" in the sense that you mean. But if you think algorithmic systems for recommending, highlighting, etc. content in a large platform are simply objective forms of "accurate data", you're not really paying close attention to how they work.
You might be right that the "market will self-correct" if your evaluation is wrong. If you like the site as it is, you might not like that outcome. Parler, TruthSocial and increasingly X are all out there as platforms that might be closer to a full "market correction" in that sense--and you can get a pretty clear picture from them of what that's like.
I understand your perspective.
In reply to your statement "But if you think algorithmic systems...are simply objective forms of "accurate data", you're not really paying close attention to how they work."
Obviously if one would examine the algorithm and have the expertise to analyze it they would discover "how they work". I haven't created algorithms professionally since the 1990's but if the code is available let's take a look at it. Have you analyzed the Substack "feature and profile" algorithmic process? Have you requested access to the code and process? Have you been denied access? f you will make the effort to get it and share it with me we can clear the matter quite easily. The code doesn't lie.
I think folks have been asking them to talk about how their algorithm sorts prominence or attention in Notes and elsewhere on the platform and other than acknowledging that there IS one (which is obvious, there has to be, and nobody would argue they could do without such a thing) they've declined to talk about it further. As is the norm generally in social media--I'm not sure why you think that one merely asks for underlying code on a platform like this one and expects to receive it. That hasn't been the case in a long time, perhaps since when you were creating algorithms professionally. They either choose to be (relatively) transparent about how they recommend and weight content or they don't.
Do you "think folks have been asking" or are you able to cite instances of the requests? As you've previously noted Substack does not follow the "norm generally in social media". I would be disappointed if Substack is stonewalling on this issue. I'll look into it and document any conversations generated.
Cheers.