Yikes! Clarifying My Note

In the note this morning I alluded to “new forms of digital pressure.” It seems readers worried this was about pressure from Substack. No, it’s just the opposite! If anything I’m more loyal to Substack than before, as the company in recent years has fended off attempt after attempt to undercut its commitment to free speech, and refused to throw authors overboard to calm down censors or boycotters. Substack has more than held up its end of the deal to writers like me.

The problem: in the last six months, for whatever reason, I seem increasingly deamplified on other platforms, to the point where there are people who follow me on Facebook who don’t see new articles even if I pay for advertising. Some of this is my fault, or better to say the result of my own choices, as the fatwa put on my Twitter/X account in the Substack dispute hasn’t helped, but that’s not the whole story. Again, I’m happy to elaborate, but the short version is like this: while it’s hard to censor an e-mail list, it’s not at all hard to suppress the marketing of one.

Perhaps I could hold a livestream or chat to talk it over, but this isn’t something I wanted readers to have to worry about. Apologies again, but I have to hit the road — more soon.