Substack was good, until it wasn’t.
It’s been a place of alternative views on topics, and an online place I’ve loved being for some time. Some of the best thinkers I follow post long form articles on there instead of the usual brain rot you see on social media.
I started posting over there, stuff that’s different to what I post here. The idea of the posts I put over there were to question the goings on in the world. The things that don’t make sense.
But Substack isn’t what they portray themselves to be.
In Australia, the social media ban had a specific list of social medias that were being forced to age verify. Substack wasn’t on the list, but they’ve decided to censor Australians anyway.
Unfortunately, they’ve chosen to use a third-party company, and the verification methods are highly invasive. Upload photos of yourself — I’m not into being forced to share my biometric data in the form of images. Or upload government-issued identification. Not a fan of that either.
There’s no human support you can talk to. There’s an AI chatbot that you can talk to—its method for ⭐️ all issues is to tell you to verify.
They’re not even sticking to their own documentation. The documentation advises that you can log in to the account, and all that is blocked is some ‘age-gated’ content that it deems inappropriate for under-16s. In reality, this is not how it’s working. I can’t access my account without verifying. I can’t access further support that requires you to be logged in, and I can’t even delete my account without verifying.
This is predatory behaviour by this company, and even if I can get my account back, I won’t be using them any more. Their ethics are sorely lacking. Shame on you, Substack. This is disgusting behaviour.
Substack 0/5 ⭐️, don’t recommend.