Journalists allege that Twitter is repressing Tweets that mention Substack. Substack is a popular medium for freelance journalists and writers to distribute newsletters. Naturally, reporters often announce the release of new posts on Substack via Twitter, another popular social media destination for the press. Twitter continues to experience tech and ethical issues since its 2022 purchase by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Journalists and media personalities already continue to speak out about the importance of verification. Musk changed Twitter’s legacy verification program to Twitter Blue, which allows any user to purchase the blue verified check mark. Verification was previously only given to government figures, celebrities, and journalists. Many members of the press feel that this move could lead to the spread of misinformation. Today’s Substack debacle has only further heightened the suspicion that Musk’s Twitter allegedly suppresses the press.
Two days ago, Substack announced their own “Notes” platform. The new extension of the site would resemble the format of Twitter. Shortly after, Twitter began restricting the ability to embed tweets into Substack articles.
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1644059950786793491?s=20
Misinformation Allegations
Others suspect that Twitter’s restrictions could have stemmed from a different cause–that Substack author of the popular “Racket News” newsletter, Matt Taibbi, allegedly did not fact check his reporting on the Twitter Files. Taibbi is a frequently active Twitter user. Anchor Medhi Hasan had Taibbi on his MSNBC show, where he grilled the writer about the accuracy of his reporting. Taibbi then fired back in a letter posted on Substack, titled “Eat Me MSNBC.”
I don’t think many people understand that these revelations would be a career-ender for most working journalists. https://t.co/TitQNIktMz
— Andy Campbell (@AndyBCampbell) April 6, 2023
The strongly-worded rebuttal to the household name news network is receiving mixed reactions across the board. However, given the criticisms of Twitter’s new verification system allowing for more misinformation, some suspect the Twitter suppression could be purposeful. Now that Taibbi’s reporting has been publicly criticized for its accuracy, limiting his massive platform on Substack and Twitter could bring some credibility back to Twitter’s vetting process.
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Substack confirmed that they are actively investigating the root cause of the embedding issue.
We're investigating reports that Twitter embeds and authentication no longer work on Substack. We are actively trying to resolve this and will share updates as additional information becomes available.
— Substack (@SubstackInc) April 6, 2023
Writer and Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie criticized Twitter, and emphasized the importance of writers owning their words on the internet.
Today, Twitter started blocking links to Substack. We hope this action was made in error and is only temporary.
However, even if this change is not temporary, it is a reminder of why cracks are starting to show in the internet’s legacy business models.
— Hamish McKenzie (@hamishmckenzie) April 7, 2023
All of this comes after a string of other issues surrounding Twitter since Musk’s takeover. Aside from the controversial move to end legacy verification, several outages have impacted the platform following mass layoffs of engineers. Following the outages, a top Twitter executive came forward with allegations of ableism from his employer after he was fired publicly by Musk. The engineer, Haraldur Thorleifsson, who sold his original designs to the social media giant, has muscular dystrophy.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has not addressed the allegations of Twitter repressing Substack tweets and embeds. At this time, it remains unclear if the tech issues were intentional.
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