Elon Musk Jumped The Shark
Twitter loses skirmish vs Substack, reinstating links to the crowdfunded Journalism and blogging platform.
Late last week during the Easter holy days, metaphorical shots were fired over at Twitter HQ. The target? Substack, the successful start-up blogging platform which has made possible the crowdfunding of top journalist talent like Matt Taibbi, away from legacy media.
The bullet came in the form of censorship, of course. A move that would backfire quickly. Twitter de-ranked Substack article links as untrusted, resulting in content warnings over Substack essays like my own, as well as feature restrictions. Birds were not allowed to like or retweet Substack links for days!
Being confronted by hundreds if not thousands of Substack writers, many of whom have large personalities on Twitter such as Bret Weinstein, Elon responded with an explanation of the censorship which frankly, doesn’t pass muster.
In fact, it was quickly fact-checked by his own community notes. lol.
Here’s why Musk was either misinformed on this tweet, or straight-up lying.
1: On the count of link censorship, Twitter’s own Community notes fact-checked him. Substack links were without a doubt blocked from being liked and retweeted. In some cases even throwing up ‘dangerous content’ warnings. I experienced this with my recent article about why Banks are dinosaurs. Though I failed to get visual evidence, you simply could not click the buttons. The likes and retweets were disabled for Substack link on Twitter.
You were even blocked from Twitting about Substack, or rather commenting on tweets about Substack? Very odd and apparently frantic behavior, as seen below.
2: On the count of Substack ‘illegally’ downloading tons of Twitter content to the benefit of their Notes feature - which allows Twitter-like public posts and feeds on Substack - well his accusation doesn’t really make sense.
Why would Substack need to download Twitter content, if their goal was to enable a new kind of public post which can be liked, commented on or shared to Substack user feeds? The logic doesn’t follow. Substack doesn’t need Twitter data to turn these features on.
In its defense, CEO of Substack Chris Best said that the data was going to embedded tweets on Substack essays, a feature which I certainly used widely. I personally embed tweets all the time on my articles, though not anymore. Given this controversy and the fact that Twitter can retroactively remove embedding access, I’m going to stick to screenshots from now on.
So while on this front, both CEOs might be obfuscating the truth, as there certainly is alternative value to Twitter’s data chests. Musk’s accusation doesn’t really make sense. But we likely don’t have the whole story here.
3: Finally in regards to Matt Taibbi working for Substack, that’s clearly a sleight of hand. Matt certainly earns revenue from his subscribers on Substack, but that doesn’t mean he is employed by Substack directly. Though Matt does have loyalty to Substack that is even greater than his loyalty to Twitter, who gave him the biggest story of his career, The Twitter Files.
Both Matt and Chris Best have denied that Matt is employed by Substack. Musk seems to be trying to discredit Matt with that statement, given that Matt was at the heart of this Twitter-Substack drama.
In fact, it appears Musk wanted Taibbi to publish his articles on Twitter directly, and Matt refused, of course. Twitter doesn’t pay for people’s content and doesn’t really have a way for its users to monetize their content. Substack instead allows people to pay writers directly and predictably via monthly subscriptions. So Matt’s decision was simple. Fuck Twitter.
The Seeds Of Dissent
Of course, I was personally affected by this as I recently migrated my blog to Substack in an attempt to grow an independent income from my essays. Twitter’s actions directly affected my business here. And I’m not gonna lie, I was shaken.
Up until this point, and despite the various sketchy moves by Musk I was nevertheless a fan.
Sketchy moves like the Twitter logo stunt, being replaced by a Doge image, which immediately pumped the cryptocurrency like 30%. A cryptocurrency created by a now famous Twitter influence who Musk engages with publicly regularly. They were even working on funding upgrades to the cryptocurrency not long ago and rumors of Musk wanting to make it Twitter’s currency, spread. It doesn’t look good. Especially with a class action lawsuit against him for manipulation of the cryptocurrency in the recent past.
Or remember that time Musk said he would never sell Bitcoin and then sold 10% of his stack within days? Later defending the move as a test of Bitcoin’s liquidity?
There’s a long list of question marks about Musk and cutthroat corporate behaviors. In fact, there’s a full fandom of Musk haters that think he is the devil incarnate. I myself am not that boat, despite his public PR games, and amateur attempts to play the crypto market like a flute.
The best way to tell if someone’s genius and good, is to ask them questions about a topic you are an expert in. They will either know more than you, be humble about their ignorance or make a bunch of shit up. Either way, you know the man.
Musks’s commentary on how to scale Bitcoin, and support for the absolute shitcoin that is dogecoin, made me pause on his greatness. Despite how lovely that dog is.
Despite all this I have been a supporter of his, overall. Even now I believe Tesla is effectively the next Apple and I am very bullish on it.
Nevertheless, he really fucked up with Substack, and just a few days later, Twitter walked back its blanket censorship of the blogging platform, allowing links to flow freely. Still, this event has fueled a sense of urgency for writers to bring their audiences off Twitter and over to Substack’s Notes. A platform that allows writers to monetize their content without the need for ads, while also keeping their email lists and thus a direct connection to their fans. Enabling true freedom of speech.
Something Musk paid lip service to in his acquisition of Twitter and now has used the platform to suppress. Wrong move Musk.
So anyway, download the Substack app and give Notes a try? I’ll be posting a lot more there now.
All the best.
Juan Galt.