On: Cracking My Phone Open and Drinking the Juice Inside

I know I only just started having a newsletter. But I've already re-thought where I want it to be, and have left Substack for the (hopefully?) greener pastures of Ghost. And, if they try something funky and weird here, I'll just pick up and leave again.

For those of you who aren't looped in on this yet, Substack has very permissive content moderation policies, which mean a la Karl Popper's "the paradox of tolerance", they also have a Nazi problem. Since Substack takes a 10% cut off any paid subscribers, they also directly profit from popular extremist publications. That's pretty much old news, I had enough friends with cool Substacks, and enough people who I respect writing publications on there that I figured it was probably fine. (That's kinda the rub on the whole thing though, right? Unless folks leave, it all seems fine?).

However. I really fucking hate Elon Musk. So when, today, I actually sat down and read what Substack co-founder/CEO Chris Best had to say about "free speech" on his platform, I finally got pissed enough to move. He positively cited Elon specifically as someone who enhanced freedom of speech and expression, along with Mark Zuc and so-called Meta (whose changes have recently moved to allow more... anti-LGBT hate speech? Fuck that).

This is also part of a larger project I've been working on to move off social media platforms which don't align with my values, and to generally make "on my phone" a more boring place to be. I've exported my data from and full-deleted Snapchat (low-hanging fruit), uninstalled TikTok, killed my Facebook, and I'm trying to hype myself up to do more. I'm just sick of the whole established ecosystem: AI slop being shoved down my throat, fewer protections for LBGT folks, and increasing censorship of content. I think that makes me sound like a bitchy grandpa, but it's true.

Above: my goal for 2025. I can't quite bring myself to full-delete X, in spite of everything. At least not yet.

Anyway. Thanks for following me here, to this new type of place. Looks a lot like the old type of place...