Substack and censorship

Some readers may have come across reports about how Substack is restricting the access of people based in the UK and Australia to some or all content unless they have subjected themselves to an age-verification process. The central problem is stupid and poorly drafted legislation in both countries – notably the Online Safety Act in the UK – but the impact has been exacerbated by the expansive and clumsy filters introduced by Substack.

Perhaps the best example of the flaws of the system has been highlighted by The Free Press, an increasingly popular alt-media news and opinion site in the US that is now owned by Paramount/CBS. The Free Press uses Substack as its publication platform. An article by one of its co-founders was censored for readers in the UK by Substack. The reason appears to be related to references to articles about fraud in Minnesota alleged to have been organised by Somali clan organisations. Understandably, The Free Press editors were furious and have published an editorial condemning the way in which the article was (initially) censored.

I refer to this deliberately as censorship because the current government has proposed that the voting age be reduced to 16 for UK elections and that is already the law for Scottish elections. Hence, a portion of the current or future electorate will be prohibited from having access to material that might be relevant to their understanding of political issues. Bear in mind that this is not sexually explicit or violent material, just factual reports that are felt to be inconvenient by either complainants or those who manage the filters. Further, those of us who are well past our teenage years will be prevented from accessing such material if we refuse to satisfy intrusive and (with complete certainty) insecure age-verification checks.

Since I have no intention myself of submitting to such checks, I have given some thought to what advice I would offer those who read my articles. I have no intention of writing material that might be judged unsuitable for children. The problem here is that censorship rules are always foolish and tend to creep if publishers are subjected to systematic campaigns from various interest groups. It is the vulnerability of censorship regimes to such lobbying that leads to absurd outcomes. I suspect that over time Substack will reach the point at which they have to decide whether it is better to leave - i.e. geoblock the UK - rather than comply with onerous and foolish rules.

The obvious first response is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) with an endpoint outside the UK. For some people, use of a VPN is standard for business and security reasons. However, you should bear in mind that firms that want to identify and control internet traffic are devoting more effort to identify traffic carried over VPNs. China, of course, has devoted immense effort to ensuring that VPNs cannot bypass their Great Firewall. Outside such countries, the main reason for identifying VPN traffic is to protect commercial streaming rights.

My advice, therefore, is to use a VPN landing point in locations with highly online business communities such as Sweden or Switzerland. Also, rotate both your VPN landing point and country regularly. It may also be best to avoid the most popular VPN providers, as they will attract the particular attention of companies trying to identify VPN traffic. Best of all, use your own private VPN using OpenVPN or similar software and a small business landing point. However, remember that like China the most censorious countries will attempt to restrict VPN traffic so this may be a rapidly evolving game.

There is another strategy to follow. For obvious reasons the provisions of the Online Safety Act don’t apply in the same way to content that is distributed by email. Attempting to extend the rules to email would cause enormous technical and political problems. The point is not that emails are free from legislation dealing with hate speech and child protection, but the rules operate in a different way.

If you are subscriber to Cloud Wisdom or any other Substack, then you will receive a copy of any article automatically distributed by email – so long as you do not switch off email delivery. Remember that subscriptions to Cloud Wisdom are free. I do not intend to change that at any time in future. So sign up as a subscriber, not as a follower, and ensure that email delivery is set to on.

For further security, set up an email account in a country with strong privacy laws and with an email service that encrypts traffic. The obvious one is Proton Mail with servers based in Switzerland, but you should bear in mind that this only works with the ProtonMail app. Do not use services offered by Gmail, Microsoft, etc as these scan incoming and outgoing emails.

Finally, it is my view that Substack has been foolish and inept in complying with UK and Australian legislation that is both confused and offensively intrusive. I will look for an alternative site that operates wholly outside both countries and refuses to comply with absurd censorship rules. I am sure that I will not be alone in reacting this way. I am equally sure that The Free Press will have to think very carefully about whether they can continue to use Substack as its publication platform. Still, major changes take time and UK readers can follow one or other of the options described above.