On going full IndyWeb

Although Substack was never designed to be just a newsletter service for something else, it can be pretty useful for that. I’ve been increasingly less inclined to use it since it became more of a ‘social’ media platform, with certain authors being promoted by The Algorithm. What really did it for me, though, was an email sent to authors the other week, which stated:

‘Substack is introducing age verification steps for those in the UK. Readers can still browse Substack without verifying, but some posts and features may be hidden or limited.’.

This, of course, is related to the Online Safety Act, which encourages platforms to censor ‘adult content’, under a demonstrably broad definition of the term that includes political commentary, the wrong opinions, reportage of protests, self-help forums and other things no rational person would consider remotely ‘adult’. Even access to Wikipedia is at risk. Most platforms further broaden the scope, because they’re that averse to the legal risks. Political censorship appears to be the whole point of the OSA, since our government, in just the last 12 months, has been going hard on its efforts to further restrict our right to protest, implement the ‘Brit Card’, mandate the widespread use of facial recognition by the police, undermine of the right to trial by jury, etc.

And there is no transparency over what gets censored or why. Some of my posts might get censored, or my account might be disabled, for some arbitrary reason I couldn’t have foreseen. That’s long been a risk with becoming dependent on mainstream platforms anyway. Monetising content on ‘social’ media would be a rather precarious way of making a living.

A much bigger concern I have is the OSA requires people to supply highly sensitive information to an assortment of third-parties most of us never heard of, in order to verify their identities. Given large-scale data breaches are being reported every other week, we should assume that data will eventually end up on the Darknet or some Russian forum. Identity theft can have catastrophic consequences, and I don’t want anyone taking that risk just to read something I posted.

Thirdly, I gave Substack the benefit of the doubt when it was being condemned for allegedly hosting far-right content, and I only did so because of the founders’ professed commitment to the freedom of expression. It sort of was a naive, but valid position, in the context of a service that enables authors to write and publish whatever they want, on a level playing field that furthers the democratisation of the Web. That’s not the case for a platform that functions as ‘social’ media, and where The Algorithm promotes whichever authors and political views serve corporate interests. Substack’s compliance with the OSA, and, by implication, politically-motivated censorship, makes it harder to justify sharing a platform with authors, such as Graham Linehan, who incite hatred against minorities.

So, what next?

I’m going to spend a little more time maintaining this site, which I should anyway, because it’s evolved into a brand. Not a brand in the sense of actively trying to market anything, but in the sense of having email addresses and a Web site on my own domain, with a distinctive identity. My site gives that identity a home page. As it happens, it looks far more professional on an engineer’s resume than a GMail address and LinkedIn account (does anyone still use LinkedIn?).

Anyone can do this, and it’s definitely worth the investment. While the mainstream platforms have been getting progressively more crap, the tools for developing and maintaining independent sites have been getting better. A typical plan with any hosting provider would give you a domain, mail server, hosting space, and perhaps a VPS that could be used for just about anything. Some hosting providers will even throw in a site builder, but there’s always the option of doing the development work yourself.

If that seems too much work, there’s always WordPress.com, which takes care of the domain registration, hosting, email and site creation services for a very good price. In fact, the newsletter and monetisation features of Substack are optional with WordPress. I’m only endorsing WordPress here because I have about 15 years’ positive experience of is as a managed service and as a custom installation on other servers.