3 areas that make my newsletter different are my persistent and largely unique focus on Early Spread, the Embalmers’ Clots and ‘curious changes on Substack.’
Bonus Content - 1 (Today I’m shooting for the “Bonus Content” record) …
One of the clues that’s caused me to believe something odd is happening to my newsletter’s “reach” is that I’ve noticed a significant decline in the number of readers who make comments at my site (compared to the past, when I actually had far fewer subscribers). I’ve also noticed that the most-popular comment often gets very few “likes” compared to the most popular comments at other “Covid Contrarian” newsletters with similar subscription numbers.
For example, I’ve noticed that the most popular comment(s) at my buddy Mark Oshinskie’s newsletter might be 40 to 50 “likes” while the most popular comment in my section might generate three to five “likes.” Such anecdotes or observations have made me wonder if, for some reason, fewer real live human being readers are going to my Reader Comment Section.
This wouldn’t matter a great deal to me except for the fact that I often insert my boldest and more provocative points (plus important links) in the Reader Comments Section.
Several readers, including Freedom Fox, have told me they receive “notifications” from Substack when someone responds to one of their comments - but not when I make a post in response to their posts.
FF also just told me Substack’s new “auto moderation” feature is a sneaky way to engage in shadow censorship. To which I replied, “Yep. No doubt.”
then there's the "hidden reply" section where i've been banished on multiple occasions. no curse words, no discriminatory content, just got flagged by the machine i guess. and today is the first time in a week where i've been able to "like" anything. weirdness abounds.
fwiw katherine watt and jessica hockett have both switched to wordpress (which has its own problems with automation)
While working on this story, an original question occurred to me. The question: I wonder if any “Covid Contrarian” like myself who got off to an encouraging start on this writers’ platform and then saw their growth stall … and then saw all trends reverse significantly … has ever reversed these trends and rallied to new heights of success?
I can’t think of an example who might fit these criteria, which tells me - sigh - for some us, the worst is yet come come. In fact, for this reason I’ve re-doubled my efforts to “post while I still can” - my thought being that if my readership numbers are down significantly today, they will be much lower 12 months from now.
That is, I need to go ahead and finish many important stories I want to write while a few human beings might still see them.
As noted in my article, my first big story on curious Substack metrics (“And So it Begins”) produced 41 paid subscribers and 251 total subscribers. This article also generated 12,700 “Page Views,” per Substack-provided metrics. FWIW, this is back when I had only 4,952 subscribers - about 50 percent fewer than I have today.
My Page View metric has also declined by 25 to 33 percent in recent months. For example, my last original story (on evidence of Early Spread in China) has generated only 3,050 Page Views when my worst-performing efforts - when I had far fewer subscribers - used to generate, on average, at least 4,500 Page Views.
One point I’ve made often is that when it comes to censorship initiatives, “freedom of reach” is just as important as “freedom of speech.”
My all-time record for Page Views with a Substack article was 73,000 which I achieved with a feature article I wrote about a Minnesota man who died almost certainly from his vaccine injury. The reason this article generated so many readers is that it was picked up by Citizen Free Press. In fact, for the first two years of my newsletter ,“Citizen Kane,” the proprietor of this popular aggregator site, probably ran 24 of my articles.
However, for some reason, the Mysterious Mr. Kane hasn’t run one of my articles in approximately two years - this despite the fact most of my articles generated impressive traffic for his site (or, presumably, Kane wouldn’t have kept running them). The “paranoid” part of my brain makes me wonder if “someone” might have told Kane to stop running my articles.
I also note that Real Clear Markets used to routinely run my articles and now no longer does.
I’ve also noted that - more than year ago - Citizen Free Press eliminated its Reader Comments Section. A personal theory of mine is that the Powers that Be might have targeted Reader Comments Sections as one area where public citizens were getting “unauthorized” content. I’ve also noted big changes with the way Zero Hedge now publishes Reader Comments (The site now primarily emphasizes comments of “Premium” Paid Subscribers).
I believe citizen free press is where I found your substack. I would hate to think he's been compromised. I wonder does he still see your articles or are they being hidden since he was posting your stuff?
I used to post links to my favorite stories in his reader comments section, which he must have read and saw. I can’t do that anymore since he no longer publishes that section. At one time, he must have been a free subscriber or checked my site. If he had kept running my articles, I definitely would have reached 20,000 subscribers. I know he has never run an embalmers’ clots story. He did run a couple of my early spread stories. I think someone got to him.
I should note that I’m one of the few Substack authors who publishes two Substack newsletters. As my readers should know, about 18 months ago I created the Troy Citizen Substack, which focuses on news, sports and history from my hometown.
The reason I started this newsletter was as a work-around to offset or counter my declining subscriber metrics on my “national” site.
I can report that that this newsletter started with a bang, producing 70 paid subscriptions in a about two months. However, in the ensuing 16 or so months, I have lost 10 paid subscribers and, like my national Substack, just about every new story I publish produces no new subscriptions.
Some readers might have noted that I recently made a concerted effort to distinguish myself by producing outstanding original coverage of Troy University’s run to the College World Series. After 3 weeks of daily stories - all original - and then more coverage of a historic three-day flood, I was able to get one (1) new paid subscriber, which netted me $40. So hundreds of hours of work generated $40 … or about a a dollar a day in new income.
Bonus Content 7 - More cutting-room floor text - Comparing my investigative journalism to that of Woodward and Bernstein …
Woodward and Bernstein became the world’s most famous investigative journalists because they exposed a cover-up among a few key lieutenants in the Nixon White House. In contrast, I have NOT become a well-known journalist even though I’ve tried to expose a cover-up that involved virtually every agency of government and every important (alleged) “truth-seeking” organization in the world - including the Fourth Estate.
Woodward and Bernstein succeeded (or actually they didn’t) in their quest to teach the public to not trust “the president and his men.” In contrast, I have FAILED in my effort to educate the public that they should NOT trust all the world’s alleged experts.
Woodward and Bernstein exposed how the White House tried to cover-up “dirty tricks” that really didn’t affect anybody’s daily lives.
With my early spread stories, I’ve tried to expose a conspiracy to cover-up a faux pandemic that ended up producing millions of lost lives (very few of which were caused by a deadly novel virus) and government responses that cost the Treasury (and the government’s “Magic Printing Press”) trillions of dollars.
Also, every important journalism organization in the country ended up running countless stories on the Watergate scandal. As far as I am aware, I’m about the ONLY journalist in the world who wrote countless stories saying the Covid origins story was obviously bunk and disinformation.
I’ve pointed out these contrasts to my wife, who agrees with me that these are interesting disparities (Thank you for your support, Sweetheart!) … alas, nobody else - who matters - does. (That is, the “pack journalists” have not lended a brother a hand and followed my lead).
One key take-away: a few scandals are still fair game to investigate; just none of the potentially “thermo-nuclear” scandals.
FWIW, at one time - if trends established over 12 to 18 months had remained largely constant, I would have at least 1,000 paid subscribers and 20,000 total subscribers by the fall of next year.
Instead, if more recent trends hold, I will have fewer than 160 paid subscribers and almost certainly fewer than 7,000 total subscribers 12 to 14 months from now.
Regarding income projections, a decline from my peak of 310 paid subscribers to a now-anticipated 160 would constitute a loss of annual gross subscription revenue of $9,000. (An annual subscription at my newsletter is $60/year).
If I had reached, say, 750 paid subscribers instead of my now projected 160, this would represent an income difference of $35,400.
If I had reached my goal of acquiring 1,000 paid subscribers by the fall of 2027, that would be $60,000 in gross revenue. As noted, it now looks like I will be fortunate to have 160 paid subscribers 14 months from now. The difference in income from the two figures is $60,000 and $9,600 - a difference of $50,400.
Of course, I should have known that, just like stock brokerages tell us in their fine print, past trends do NOT guarantee these trends will continue. I just didn’t know the trend changes would be THIS dramatic.
Cutting Room Floor Text 6 - the Kait Justice comparison …
As noted into today’s article proper, my hypothesis is that ideological criteria may have been applied to manipulate what newsletters grow impressively and which ones are now struggling to survive.
An example I have cited several times in recent metrics articles is an analysis of the fairly new Substack of Kait Justice.
In less than a year, Kati’s newsletter grew from no subscribers to more than 29,000 and now has “thousands” of paid subscribers.
Approximately six months ago, when I wrote a feature on Kait’s Substack (which focusses on the Epstein files), my newsletter had significantly more paid and free subscribers than Kait did. Today, Kait’s total subscriber numbers are 4-fold larger than mine and her paid numbers (“thousands”) must be at least five-fold larger than my own.
I should note that I don’t begrudge Kait’s success as, it’s very possible, the “market” of Substack readers is simply rewarding her for the complex and time-consuming research she has performed.
Still, to be candid, I don’t understand how her best work - which produces hundreds of new subscribers with every article - is that much better or original than my articles which, now, almost never produce one new subscriber and actually cost me lost subscribers. (I also think I’ve broken far more scoops - just on Early Spread - than Kait).
I mention Kait’s metric numbers only to illustrate that there is a large number of fairly novice Substack authors whose results are the exact opposite of my own.
Even in the cohort of “Sub-stack Contrarians” (a term I might have coined), many authors who probably think like me are doing either much better than I am or the attrition and trend-reversals I have documented is much more acute and conspicuous at my newsletter.
In today’s article, I tried to point out the revenue I didn’t generate because A) I started losing existing subscribers and B) I quit getting new subscribers.
Another area of potential lost income might be harder to quantify, but might be worth mentioning in today’s flurry of Bonus Content.
In an alternative reality, I would have reached so many readers with my original articles on Early Spread and the Embalmers’ clots that I would have been a regular guest on podcasts across the Internet, which would have led to invitations to speak on the lucrative “Freedom Writers” circuit, which would have put me in front of perhaps millions of fellow citizens.
I’m sure, like myself, my readers can think of numerous examples of “Covid Contrarians” or “Freedom Writers” who reached an audience impressive enough that they were now in demand on the Speakers’ Circuit. As the subscriber and readership numbers of content creators grew, their podcast invitations grew, which increased their “brand” and, ultimately, their income levels.
I don’t know if the same thing MIGHT have happened to me if my subscriber and readership numbers had kept increasing at the pace they were increasing my first 18 months. I just know those invites didn’t materialize, which, I admit, IS somewhat of a bummer for me.
Who knows? If I communicated effectively enough and my messages resonated with enough people, I would have been far more likely to come into contact with people and officials who DO matter - and the Great Purge of lying leaders I keep lobbying for might have already commenced.
Anyway, if “someone” was concerned about any unique messages I might promote ever “going viral,” this threat or possibility never materialized.
(I never got the chance to, say, be interviewed by Tucker Carlson, which - if I had - the world would by now know all about the embalmers’ clots and the evidence of Early Spread.)
One more take-away: Making sure the “wrong” person does NOT get interview requests is probably very important to the world’s real rulers and narrative controllers.
Bonus Content 10 - The dreaded “email disabled” notices …
Another novel development at my Substack in, say, the last 8 months, has been the huge number of emails I get from Substack alerting me that a “subscriber to Bill Rice Jr.’s Newsletter has disabled his email.”
I actually don’t know what this really means except other “Covid Contrarian” Substack authors tell me this isn’t happening to them every day.
I think my record was 19 “disabled email” notices in one 24-hour period. What’s odd is that I will get 5 to 10 to 15 of these notices within 5 to 30 minutes of me posting a story. (This, no doubt, will happen with today’s story.)
I don’t understand why or how so many “subscribers” are apparently sitting at their computer or holding their devises champing at the bit to disable my emails - all at the same time. This happens before anyone could have time to read even the first two paragraphs of the story.
By now, this has happened so much that there can’t be many of my subscribers left who have NOT disabled my emails.
(I need to email Kait Justice and ask her if the same thing happens with every one of the stories she posts.)
FWIW, I don’t spend 10 minutes every day disabling the emails of the 100 or so free newsletters I subscribe to. Nor do I instantly “unsubscribe” to free subscriptions I took out X days, weeks or months ago.
What I actually suspect is happening is that many “bots” must be subscribing to my newsletter and then unsubscribe or disable my emails, … all of which means I don’t know how many “human” subscribers I might actually have. (Substack metrics tell me I have 7,516, but I’m skeptical).
Yes, as a form or research to test my theories, I’m going to monitor the number of “likes” all these comments generate. The responses are either going to leave me pleasantly surprised or cause me to say, “Yep; just what I thought …” Lastly, I greatly appreciate everyone who has subscribed to Bill Rice, Jr.’s Newsletter.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and statistics, Bill. As I've commented previously, I have also experienced a significant bloodletting over the past three years. My paid subscriptions have been in free fall since January 2023 (coincidentally or not, this was after AI had been incorporated into the Substack platform, although I do not know the details as that is hearsay from a reader).
Substack is my primary source of income, and I spend far more than a full-time job on this passion work. I am now in an extremely precarious financial situation and unable to pay bills. This is unsustainable long-term, and I need to figure out how to survive while still being 100-percent committed to my mission of fighting tyranny and democide and helping people become unherdable (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/my-five-year-stackiversary-become).
Most recently, I discovered my newsletters have not been getting delivered to a number of readers for over a month (including to at least one paid subscriber). I was able to spot-check the ones I was aware of and see Substack notes these emails as "dropped." I suspect there is a new blacklist or spam list being used by larger email providers, and my Substack email is on that list and thus not getting delivered—even to junk folders. Neither I nor the recipient is aware of these failed deliveries unless the recipient realizes they have not been receiving my newsletters and alerts me. This is more pernicious than simply marking the newsletters as spam because at least recipients can find them in their junk folders and whitelist the newsletter from there.
This hearkens back to the phrase "freedom of speech but not freedom of reach." I believe we are being given the illusion of freedom of speech while our voices are being silenced almost completely outside the Substack silo.
Great info. Sounds like we are in similar boats - The Titanic. I imagine this is designed to demoralize authors like us and make us more likely to quit. I’d contact one of the world’s fearless trial lawyers but none would be interested in taking on such a case. We need some whistleblowers at Substack or Stripe to come forward.
Thank you, Bill! For what it's worth, I don't think Substack is necessarily the culprit, at least from what I've observed. Every instance of censorship I've experienced has actually come from external companies targeting my Substack specifically and Substack in general. Debbie Lerman shared more details about my observations in this post, which I think you've seen:
Tx for making the point it might not be Substack or Substack entirely. They must know though … and aren’t going to bat for any injustices being done to you and me.
Synchronistically, I had reached out to a Substack team member about the dropped email issue yesterday, and he got back to me this afternoon with a very kind note asking Substack Support to look into it. Hopefully, I'll have good news to report on that front soon.
Substack tech support is working on it, but in the meantime, I talked to tech support for one of the email providers that was having dropped emails, and I learned one of the blacklists they use (https://zapbl.net) does indeed have the substack.com domain listed as spam! This means any email providers that use that list for spam-killing will automatically block all Substack emails, which will result in them getting dropped. I have reported this to Substack and hope they can get Substack.com delisted ASAP as that affects all newsletters and is a serious concern for Substack's business.
Ok, I'm probably guilty of this. I prefer to read on the substack site - it's much easier for me to come over to the site and read instead of sorting out the substack mails and the personal mails.
In the beginning of June Substack made an update to the platform that gave authors automatic comment moderation via a toggle on the Stack's settings. "automatic moderation." Factory default to "On." Which we noticed when the light gray "replies hidden" prompt at the bottom of the comment section appeared.
By research and investigation, including using Substack's AI chatbot, it was discovered that the autocensorship is factory defaulted to SS's "community standards." Which land comments into the "replies hidden" zone. That being an author-controlled feature, those of us who identified it and followed how to turn it off are back to free speech on our Stacks. Many authors have not noticed, and many authors prefer it. I've stopped following those authors who support censorship.
But the bigger picture of the revelation of SS's "community standards" is that those are, in fact, provable, Substack's "community standards" for the entire platform. Which apparently have been in effect since 2022-2024 some time. Around when the highly censorious Europeans demanded all platforms comply with their censorship rules.
And with those being SS's "community standards" we can infer, be certain that contrarian Stacks like Bill Rice's Newsletter and mine are also in a SS "hidden stack" zone. I now call it the SS Ghetto. But unlike on Stack comments where we see "replies hidden" as an option we can click into, there is no "Stacks hidden" tab we can click into. Apparently they know the temptation of forbidden fruit would draw more attention to them.
So SS Ghetto Stacks don't get featured, recommended, suggested, aren't populated when searching for key words on topics that other readers will see. Only if a Ghetto Stack is searched for with precise words will they be shown. And SS Ghetto Stacks will often be recommended to those who subscribe to and primarily interact with SS Ghetto Stacks. That's it. No ability to build readership, followers, subscribers unless an independent marketing campaign is able to direct readers to it.
This is the classic Elon Musk version of the Freedom of Speech, which he stated doesn't equal Freedom of Reach. This is how and why Bill's Stack and all of the Ghetto Stacks are hemorrhaging readers and subscribers. SS's comment policy they unveiled in June revealed the hidden hand that's been working for 2-4 years now.
Thank you, FF. This has the ring of truth to me - just like your theory that the flu shots probably/might have something major to do with Covid outbreaks. (That's another theory that, if proven, would be thermo-nuclear. I've talked about it a fair amount in my Reader Comments but ... I don't think large numbers of people are seeing my Reader Comments.)
With all due respect, Freedom Fox, and Bill, I strongly suspect the censorship is considerably more direct, malicious, and nefarious that the system you're describing. I'm not saying you're wrong about this sort of shadow banning having been recently instituted by Substack. I'm just saying I'm fairly certain it's not the whole story, nor even the most significant reason why your Substack, Bill, has been hemorrhaging readers.
As a thirty-six (or possibly longer) year veteran of torture, I've learned to trust my instincts about anything strange, weird, threatening, bizarre, suspicious, etc. The number of ways victims can be and are targeted is essentially infinite. The spy agencies have unlimited money and power. They employ vast armies of gangstalkers and digital stalkers. I wish more people understood this. The sooner you wake up to the reality we're living in, the better.
No illusions, TB. I've been targeted by trollbots and paid malicious, nefarious actors on this platform. Some that will instantly create a mocking parody account, typically triggered when you respond to a trollbot. They target their snark and try to get their prey to bite, the response generates the malicious propagation of spam accounts that reputationally damage. The saying, "don't feed the trolls" is the wisest way to avoid. Here's one example of a trollbot that replicated me about 8 months ago that still actively trolls me:
https:// freedomfux[dot]substack[dot]com
(reformat that to normal, I break it up just to throw the trollbots off)
Others will use the same url account but change profile names regularly to imitate their targets. Several of those have gotten me. Those trollbot types find another target and morph into them, constantly rotating. I've identified certain patterns, many have the same followers, following, reads and subscribers. Most all follow or are followed by On Substack and other SS official information dissemination pages. Those pages serve as a sort of central hub, identifying what is dis/mis/malinformation and the trollbots they know are here take their cues and go after targeted writers, trolling for commenters.
It is wide and deep. Back to my final question, What do we do about it?
I'm almost certain such a troll/bot coordinated campaign was used to quickly scuttle the presidential campaign of Florida Governor DeSantis.
When DeSantis announced he was running for president, he was easily and without question the most popular Republican politician in the country (except for, I guess, Donald Trump). He was a "rock star" and the one politician who stood up to the Covid lockdowns. (He also was battling Disney and its DEI initiatives.)
Within days or weeks of announcing his campaign, "someone" went to work on a campaign to instantly discredit this person.
I lost count of the number of Reader Comments at influential "conservative" sites (like Zero Hedge) that attacked him (ironically today) as a neo-con and Jeb Bush clone who was extremely corrupt and incompetent.
Out of the blue, these posts were everywhere. Anyone who tried to defend DeSantis (like I did) was instantly attacked in the Reader Comments sections and these posts received very few "likes" and many down-votes or "unlikes."
Soon - remarkably fast - the narrative on DeSantis flipped 180 degrees, which killed any momentum for his campaign, killed his fund-raising efforts and, reading the writing on the wall, he quickly dropped out of the race.
IMO, this could not have been an organic, legit grassroots movement. It had to all be coordinated.
I think people can relate to this as, all the time, we see talking heads all saying the exact same thing - using the exact same phrases and talking points - which is obviously evidence of a coordinated narrative-control op.
In short, such projects are, indeed, very common - they work and they are sinister.
As I wrote in one of my most politically-incorrect columns, the same thing happened (IMO) with this sudden move to cast mixed-race couples in all TV advertising campaigns. That was also, clearly to me, coordinated and some kind of conspiracy intentional operation.
With DeSantis, the narrative used to scuttle his campaign and denigrate his reputation was that he was a neocon who was taking orders from Israel (I don't know,, he might be). However, look at the president who was elected - he's even worse.
I always thought, with DeSantis, one reason "they" might have wanted to defeat him is that they thought he would/might question more of the "authorized" Covid narrative and would maybe go after the "safe and effective vaccines." That is, Big Pharma might have been behind this op? That is, they knew Trump wouldn't do anything to hurt their business (even if Trump did appoint RFK, Jr to his cabinet).
... But these "bots" and trolls - some obviously paid - are indeed everywhere and employed against people/influencers they perceive as a threat that must be discredited and effectively silenced or muted.
More so than ever in the world, everything seems to hinge on "narrative control" and this objective depends on various forms of censorship or shadow censorship operations.
IMO, this even affects me and my newsletter. (For example, I just checked my Page View metric for this "provocative" and "significant" story. Almost 24 hours after I posted it, it's produced only 2,500 "reads" - which is a "reach" number that's obviously not going to change anything or threaten anybody in power.
I have a lot of thoughts about DeSantis, living in Florida since 2020 after the state I was living in went full Covidian. Primarily that he, himself is a construct, the myth of him, his governance frequently departed from the reality of his governance. Lots of big declarations and proclamations that Florida was the "free state" and not going to be this or that DEI/Woke/Tranny/Medical tyranny state. Great press conferences, headlines, follow-through was usually lacking.
I was happy to be in Florida compared to where I had been, and compared to most other states. But he was largely, "All hat, no cattle" on a lot of things. And I'm under no illusion that if he had lost to the Crack Ho Andrew Gillum in 2018 that Florida and most of the nation would have had a much different Plandemic experience without the vocal and performative pushback on medical tyranny that DeSantis at least delivered.
Only 33,000 votes out of 8.2 million cast prevented Florida from being just like New York. The former mayor of Tallahassee was a known meth head/crack addict rentboy male prostitute. Known to local media and Democrat officials, anyways. Who ignored it just like they ignore all their drug addict pervert criminals they put up for elected office, knowing how easy it is to control them with kompromat. Gillum most recently arrested in your Alabama, Mobile-area suburb. More meth, who knows the real circumstances of the arrest. He was found passed out naked in a pool of vomit in a Miami Beach hotel a few years ago, a wealthy, flamboyant "John" had paid for a night party rump romp rave with Gillum and another rentboy that got the hotel's attention and police called, pictures leaked, yet his political connections kept him out of trouble in D-controlled Miami. Even the Daphne, AL police seem to be covering up what they can in his latest arrest, floating the marijuana possession part of the story, saying nothing about the meth/crack and other rentboy activities that I suspect were involved. 33,000 votes from that guy running Florida. Eeesh.
Sorry, sidetracked, but topical and in your state, so had to share. Back to DeSantis, just know that most of what he is credited with doing were loud barks, small bites. I even remember having to play hide-and-seek with sheriffs on boats on the Fourth of July, 2020, who were running people out of parks along the intercoastal watching the boat parade with lots of flags, being threatened with arrest for endangering all the community by being outdoors...in a park...on Independence Day, you know, celebrating freedom and all, because, the "free state of Florida" was so free and all because a bad cold had circulated a few months earlier, and 'mostly peaceful' riots and large protests were allowed to fill our streets six weeks earlier. Nothing says "freedom" like being chased off an island park by county sheriffs landing their boat and threatening to take us to jail. So many other examples.
And DeSantis was backed by the same Woke/DEI/Big Data/Tranny-loving medical tyrant oligarchs and DC insiders his public pronouncements were aimed at. He just named the Woke/DEI/Big Data/Tranny-Lover former President of Univ. Alabama to head the Univ. of Florida. Thanks for that one, Bill! And he allowed the lawfare raid on Mar-a-Lago when state and local police could've controlled and prevented that just like state and local police stop ICE agents from enforcing federal law in blue states. He played dirty, duplicitous pool. That little (non)-move probably did more to ensure Trump would win than anything else, If DeSantis had stood up for Trump he might have been heir apparent. Trump sat on sidelines waiting to see another candidate jump in who would take the baton from him; none did.
NONE of that is to diminish or dismiss your point about trollbot armies and what was done after his campaign launch. His Twitter launch was a disaster, lots of bugs, servers crashing. Who knows, maybe that was orchestrated, too, and not just incompetence? His wife was cosplaying regular, ordinary Floridian, her silver spoon lifestyle she tried to straddle made her an awkward campaign prop. It was a terribly inauthentic campaign that sank him, though. Whether or not the trollbots made his collapse faster is the only question, he had no chance, highly stage-managed. What happens when delusions of grandeur meet up with expensive campaign consultants who were more interested in getting rich than winning an election. The graft from his campaign was jaw-dropping, burned through a couple-hundred million dollars on next to nothing but consultant fees.
Too bad, I liked his rhetoric, was glad he was governor then, still is one of the best governors in the nation today. But not presidential timber.
The same ‘forces’ that have pushed the meteoric growth in Stacks like Robert Reich to over 1 million in a short period, are at work in the opposite direction.
There is no way in any universe that a million people (with a very high paid rate) want to read anything that seditious jerk writes.
It’s the same op. Just flowing in the opposite direction.
Remember. When DOGE arrived in DC a year ago one of the first things they discovered was the 10s of 1000s (it may have been 100s of 1000s) of subscriptions being paid for directly by the govt. And indirectly via USAID and $ flowing to NGOs. NY Times. Politico. Axios. And I think some left wing alt news sources, Substack included.
I think they shut most of it off. But the op didn’t go away. And they are certainly using AI to make it look ‘organic’.
I’ve thought the same thing - opposite ops to produce opposite results. For the first 3 years of Substack, the Contrarians were blowing up and the Reich’s of the world thought Substack was only for Nazi’s and kooks. Everything flipped.
It's coordinated, planned, intentional and results that are produced due to the efforts of many people and organizations. That's the "sinister" and "scary" part.
In yesterday's story I wrote: "In recent months, I’ve been losing approximately three to five total subscribers every day."
This is an example of me using conservative figures. I just checked and 21 hours after I published this story I have lost six more subscribers.
At the moment, I'm thinking of these six "subscribers" who decided to now go ahead and unsubscribe to my newsletter (actually, five unsubscribed in one hour).
I can't help but think, "What are these people thinking? What agitated or motivated them to now unsubscribe to my newsletter?" My assumption (which is no doubt a false assumption) is that people subscribe to a newsletter after they read one or more of my stories, decide they like my writing and hit the "subscribe" button (97 percent of my subscriptions are free so they are not out any money or unsubscribing to save money).
Thus, they must know I'm going to challenge authorized narratives. They must know one area I focus on (because few other Substack authors do) is "curious metrics on Subtack."
But, these readers suddenly have a change of opinion and, within an hour, five of them decide they don't like my essays and thus unsubscribe?
At least to me, this scenario doesn't seem overly plausible or likely.
Which, thus, informs my opinion that many of these "subscribers" must not be real, live human beings. Furthermore, when they did subscribe, they weren't real, live human beings either.
So who knows how many real, live human beings are actually getting and reading my articles. I certainly don't know. I just don't think this number is 7,510 (previously 7,516).
As one of my real human readers posted in this thread, "everything is an illusion."
... One might read the above anecdote and conclude, "Well, these readers just don't agree with your take on 'possible funny business' on Substack and are using their prerogative to unsubscribe to a reader who expresses views counter to their own.
However, as I have found, the content of my stories doesn't matter a hill of beans. I lose the same number of subscribers - usually instantly - whatever topic I write about.
For example, a couple of months ago I wrote a piece on the "Death of Hollywood" and how I thought the current "Best Picture" movie is awful. That story also lost "three to five" subscribers in one hour.
I could write a story on how much I love cute puppies and that essay would lose me five subscribers and five to 20 readers would instantly "disable their emails" to my newsletter.
In fact, I've studied this. When I go a few days without posting a story, I don't lose as many - or any subscribers.
This, in fact, informs one of my new surreal maxims - the key to growing your Substack is to NOT publish stories. This isn't a joke either. As I have pointed out, Igor Chudev (sp?) hasn't posted a new story in more than 16 months - and he is still in the Top 50 of Substack authors in the Health and Politics category. After he quit writing stories, Igor's Substack grew by at least 1,500 subscribers.
Another quick update: I just got a notice that says I've added four new free subscribers in the last 22 hours.
I have also now gone up one subscriber from 7,510 to 7,511, which means I've lost "only" five net subscribers with this article.
However, these notifications deserves further analysis.
When I posted this article, I had 7,516 subscribers. As I just learned, I've now added four new free subscribers - which would take me up to 7,250. However, I only have 7,511 subscribers - which actually means that NINE "subscribers" have unsubscribed (not five).
Furthermore, my guess is at least one or two of my new subscribers are bots, probably designed to camouflage my real subscriber attrition. (Probably 1 to four of these new subscribers will soon unsubscribe.)
IMO, somehow fake bot subscribers are being used to conceal the loss of all my real subscribers.
I also, I now see, I just lost another two paid subscribers ... and those hurt more.
Anyway, what do I always write? "Post while you still can!"
UPDATE: Thirty minutes after I posted today's article, I've received four notifications of subscribers who have "disabled their emails" from my newsletter. Per experience, this number will grow rapidly. I'll update the 24-hour figure tomorrow at around 2 p.m. CST.
Also, I just checked my dashboard. When I published this article, I had 7,516 subscribers. I now have 7,511, meaning five subscribers instantly unsubscribed.
Bonus Content - 1 (Today I’m shooting for the “Bonus Content” record) …
One of the clues that’s caused me to believe something odd is happening to my newsletter’s “reach” is that I’ve noticed a significant decline in the number of readers who make comments at my site (compared to the past, when I actually had far fewer subscribers). I’ve also noticed that the most-popular comment often gets very few “likes” compared to the most popular comments at other “Covid Contrarian” newsletters with similar subscription numbers.
For example, I’ve noticed that the most popular comment(s) at my buddy Mark Oshinskie’s newsletter might be 40 to 50 “likes” while the most popular comment in my section might generate three to five “likes.” Such anecdotes or observations have made me wonder if, for some reason, fewer real live human being readers are going to my Reader Comment Section.
This wouldn’t matter a great deal to me except for the fact that I often insert my boldest and more provocative points (plus important links) in the Reader Comments Section.
Several readers, including Freedom Fox, have told me they receive “notifications” from Substack when someone responds to one of their comments - but not when I make a post in response to their posts.
FF also just told me Substack’s new “auto moderation” feature is a sneaky way to engage in shadow censorship. To which I replied, “Yep. No doubt.”
then there's the "hidden reply" section where i've been banished on multiple occasions. no curse words, no discriminatory content, just got flagged by the machine i guess. and today is the first time in a week where i've been able to "like" anything. weirdness abounds.
fwiw katherine watt and jessica hockett have both switched to wordpress (which has its own problems with automation)
I wondered where Jessica went.
now you know :) https://woodhouse76.com/
Bonus Content 8 -
While working on this story, an original question occurred to me. The question: I wonder if any “Covid Contrarian” like myself who got off to an encouraging start on this writers’ platform and then saw their growth stall … and then saw all trends reverse significantly … has ever reversed these trends and rallied to new heights of success?
I can’t think of an example who might fit these criteria, which tells me - sigh - for some us, the worst is yet come come. In fact, for this reason I’ve re-doubled my efforts to “post while I still can” - my thought being that if my readership numbers are down significantly today, they will be much lower 12 months from now.
That is, I need to go ahead and finish many important stories I want to write while a few human beings might still see them.
Bonus Content 2 -
As noted in my article, my first big story on curious Substack metrics (“And So it Begins”) produced 41 paid subscribers and 251 total subscribers. This article also generated 12,700 “Page Views,” per Substack-provided metrics. FWIW, this is back when I had only 4,952 subscribers - about 50 percent fewer than I have today.
My Page View metric has also declined by 25 to 33 percent in recent months. For example, my last original story (on evidence of Early Spread in China) has generated only 3,050 Page Views when my worst-performing efforts - when I had far fewer subscribers - used to generate, on average, at least 4,500 Page Views.
One point I’ve made often is that when it comes to censorship initiatives, “freedom of reach” is just as important as “freedom of speech.”
Bonus Content 3 -
My all-time record for Page Views with a Substack article was 73,000 which I achieved with a feature article I wrote about a Minnesota man who died almost certainly from his vaccine injury. The reason this article generated so many readers is that it was picked up by Citizen Free Press. In fact, for the first two years of my newsletter ,“Citizen Kane,” the proprietor of this popular aggregator site, probably ran 24 of my articles.
However, for some reason, the Mysterious Mr. Kane hasn’t run one of my articles in approximately two years - this despite the fact most of my articles generated impressive traffic for his site (or, presumably, Kane wouldn’t have kept running them). The “paranoid” part of my brain makes me wonder if “someone” might have told Kane to stop running my articles.
I also note that Real Clear Markets used to routinely run my articles and now no longer does.
I’ve also noted that - more than year ago - Citizen Free Press eliminated its Reader Comments Section. A personal theory of mine is that the Powers that Be might have targeted Reader Comments Sections as one area where public citizens were getting “unauthorized” content. I’ve also noted big changes with the way Zero Hedge now publishes Reader Comments (The site now primarily emphasizes comments of “Premium” Paid Subscribers).
I believe citizen free press is where I found your substack. I would hate to think he's been compromised. I wonder does he still see your articles or are they being hidden since he was posting your stuff?
I used to post links to my favorite stories in his reader comments section, which he must have read and saw. I can’t do that anymore since he no longer publishes that section. At one time, he must have been a free subscriber or checked my site. If he had kept running my articles, I definitely would have reached 20,000 subscribers. I know he has never run an embalmers’ clots story. He did run a couple of my early spread stories. I think someone got to him.
Bonus Content 4 -
I should note that I’m one of the few Substack authors who publishes two Substack newsletters. As my readers should know, about 18 months ago I created the Troy Citizen Substack, which focuses on news, sports and history from my hometown.
The reason I started this newsletter was as a work-around to offset or counter my declining subscriber metrics on my “national” site.
I can report that that this newsletter started with a bang, producing 70 paid subscriptions in a about two months. However, in the ensuing 16 or so months, I have lost 10 paid subscribers and, like my national Substack, just about every new story I publish produces no new subscriptions.
Some readers might have noted that I recently made a concerted effort to distinguish myself by producing outstanding original coverage of Troy University’s run to the College World Series. After 3 weeks of daily stories - all original - and then more coverage of a historic three-day flood, I was able to get one (1) new paid subscriber, which netted me $40. So hundreds of hours of work generated $40 … or about a a dollar a day in new income.
Bonus Content 7 - More cutting-room floor text - Comparing my investigative journalism to that of Woodward and Bernstein …
Woodward and Bernstein became the world’s most famous investigative journalists because they exposed a cover-up among a few key lieutenants in the Nixon White House. In contrast, I have NOT become a well-known journalist even though I’ve tried to expose a cover-up that involved virtually every agency of government and every important (alleged) “truth-seeking” organization in the world - including the Fourth Estate.
Woodward and Bernstein succeeded (or actually they didn’t) in their quest to teach the public to not trust “the president and his men.” In contrast, I have FAILED in my effort to educate the public that they should NOT trust all the world’s alleged experts.
Woodward and Bernstein exposed how the White House tried to cover-up “dirty tricks” that really didn’t affect anybody’s daily lives.
With my early spread stories, I’ve tried to expose a conspiracy to cover-up a faux pandemic that ended up producing millions of lost lives (very few of which were caused by a deadly novel virus) and government responses that cost the Treasury (and the government’s “Magic Printing Press”) trillions of dollars.
Also, every important journalism organization in the country ended up running countless stories on the Watergate scandal. As far as I am aware, I’m about the ONLY journalist in the world who wrote countless stories saying the Covid origins story was obviously bunk and disinformation.
I’ve pointed out these contrasts to my wife, who agrees with me that these are interesting disparities (Thank you for your support, Sweetheart!) … alas, nobody else - who matters - does. (That is, the “pack journalists” have not lended a brother a hand and followed my lead).
One key take-away: a few scandals are still fair game to investigate; just none of the potentially “thermo-nuclear” scandals.
Bonus Content 5 -
FWIW, at one time - if trends established over 12 to 18 months had remained largely constant, I would have at least 1,000 paid subscribers and 20,000 total subscribers by the fall of next year.
Instead, if more recent trends hold, I will have fewer than 160 paid subscribers and almost certainly fewer than 7,000 total subscribers 12 to 14 months from now.
Regarding income projections, a decline from my peak of 310 paid subscribers to a now-anticipated 160 would constitute a loss of annual gross subscription revenue of $9,000. (An annual subscription at my newsletter is $60/year).
If I had reached, say, 750 paid subscribers instead of my now projected 160, this would represent an income difference of $35,400.
If I had reached my goal of acquiring 1,000 paid subscribers by the fall of 2027, that would be $60,000 in gross revenue. As noted, it now looks like I will be fortunate to have 160 paid subscribers 14 months from now. The difference in income from the two figures is $60,000 and $9,600 - a difference of $50,400.
Of course, I should have known that, just like stock brokerages tell us in their fine print, past trends do NOT guarantee these trends will continue. I just didn’t know the trend changes would be THIS dramatic.
Cutting Room Floor Text 6 - the Kait Justice comparison …
As noted into today’s article proper, my hypothesis is that ideological criteria may have been applied to manipulate what newsletters grow impressively and which ones are now struggling to survive.
An example I have cited several times in recent metrics articles is an analysis of the fairly new Substack of Kait Justice.
In less than a year, Kati’s newsletter grew from no subscribers to more than 29,000 and now has “thousands” of paid subscribers.
Approximately six months ago, when I wrote a feature on Kait’s Substack (which focusses on the Epstein files), my newsletter had significantly more paid and free subscribers than Kait did. Today, Kait’s total subscriber numbers are 4-fold larger than mine and her paid numbers (“thousands”) must be at least five-fold larger than my own.
I should note that I don’t begrudge Kait’s success as, it’s very possible, the “market” of Substack readers is simply rewarding her for the complex and time-consuming research she has performed.
Still, to be candid, I don’t understand how her best work - which produces hundreds of new subscribers with every article - is that much better or original than my articles which, now, almost never produce one new subscriber and actually cost me lost subscribers. (I also think I’ve broken far more scoops - just on Early Spread - than Kait).
I mention Kait’s metric numbers only to illustrate that there is a large number of fairly novice Substack authors whose results are the exact opposite of my own.
Even in the cohort of “Sub-stack Contrarians” (a term I might have coined), many authors who probably think like me are doing either much better than I am or the attrition and trend-reversals I have documented is much more acute and conspicuous at my newsletter.
Bonus Content 9 -
In today’s article, I tried to point out the revenue I didn’t generate because A) I started losing existing subscribers and B) I quit getting new subscribers.
Another area of potential lost income might be harder to quantify, but might be worth mentioning in today’s flurry of Bonus Content.
In an alternative reality, I would have reached so many readers with my original articles on Early Spread and the Embalmers’ clots that I would have been a regular guest on podcasts across the Internet, which would have led to invitations to speak on the lucrative “Freedom Writers” circuit, which would have put me in front of perhaps millions of fellow citizens.
I’m sure, like myself, my readers can think of numerous examples of “Covid Contrarians” or “Freedom Writers” who reached an audience impressive enough that they were now in demand on the Speakers’ Circuit. As the subscriber and readership numbers of content creators grew, their podcast invitations grew, which increased their “brand” and, ultimately, their income levels.
I don’t know if the same thing MIGHT have happened to me if my subscriber and readership numbers had kept increasing at the pace they were increasing my first 18 months. I just know those invites didn’t materialize, which, I admit, IS somewhat of a bummer for me.
Who knows? If I communicated effectively enough and my messages resonated with enough people, I would have been far more likely to come into contact with people and officials who DO matter - and the Great Purge of lying leaders I keep lobbying for might have already commenced.
Anyway, if “someone” was concerned about any unique messages I might promote ever “going viral,” this threat or possibility never materialized.
(I never got the chance to, say, be interviewed by Tucker Carlson, which - if I had - the world would by now know all about the embalmers’ clots and the evidence of Early Spread.)
One more take-away: Making sure the “wrong” person does NOT get interview requests is probably very important to the world’s real rulers and narrative controllers.
Bonus Content 10 - The dreaded “email disabled” notices …
Another novel development at my Substack in, say, the last 8 months, has been the huge number of emails I get from Substack alerting me that a “subscriber to Bill Rice Jr.’s Newsletter has disabled his email.”
I actually don’t know what this really means except other “Covid Contrarian” Substack authors tell me this isn’t happening to them every day.
I think my record was 19 “disabled email” notices in one 24-hour period. What’s odd is that I will get 5 to 10 to 15 of these notices within 5 to 30 minutes of me posting a story. (This, no doubt, will happen with today’s story.)
I don’t understand why or how so many “subscribers” are apparently sitting at their computer or holding their devises champing at the bit to disable my emails - all at the same time. This happens before anyone could have time to read even the first two paragraphs of the story.
By now, this has happened so much that there can’t be many of my subscribers left who have NOT disabled my emails.
(I need to email Kait Justice and ask her if the same thing happens with every one of the stories she posts.)
FWIW, I don’t spend 10 minutes every day disabling the emails of the 100 or so free newsletters I subscribe to. Nor do I instantly “unsubscribe” to free subscriptions I took out X days, weeks or months ago.
What I actually suspect is happening is that many “bots” must be subscribing to my newsletter and then unsubscribe or disable my emails, … all of which means I don’t know how many “human” subscribers I might actually have. (Substack metrics tell me I have 7,516, but I’m skeptical).
Last Bonus Comment Comment - No. 11
Yes, as a form or research to test my theories, I’m going to monitor the number of “likes” all these comments generate. The responses are either going to leave me pleasantly surprised or cause me to say, “Yep; just what I thought …” Lastly, I greatly appreciate everyone who has subscribed to Bill Rice, Jr.’s Newsletter.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and statistics, Bill. As I've commented previously, I have also experienced a significant bloodletting over the past three years. My paid subscriptions have been in free fall since January 2023 (coincidentally or not, this was after AI had been incorporated into the Substack platform, although I do not know the details as that is hearsay from a reader).
Substack is my primary source of income, and I spend far more than a full-time job on this passion work. I am now in an extremely precarious financial situation and unable to pay bills. This is unsustainable long-term, and I need to figure out how to survive while still being 100-percent committed to my mission of fighting tyranny and democide and helping people become unherdable (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/my-five-year-stackiversary-become).
Most recently, I discovered my newsletters have not been getting delivered to a number of readers for over a month (including to at least one paid subscriber). I was able to spot-check the ones I was aware of and see Substack notes these emails as "dropped." I suspect there is a new blacklist or spam list being used by larger email providers, and my Substack email is on that list and thus not getting delivered—even to junk folders. Neither I nor the recipient is aware of these failed deliveries unless the recipient realizes they have not been receiving my newsletters and alerts me. This is more pernicious than simply marking the newsletters as spam because at least recipients can find them in their junk folders and whitelist the newsletter from there.
This hearkens back to the phrase "freedom of speech but not freedom of reach." I believe we are being given the illusion of freedom of speech while our voices are being silenced almost completely outside the Substack silo.
Great info. Sounds like we are in similar boats - The Titanic. I imagine this is designed to demoralize authors like us and make us more likely to quit. I’d contact one of the world’s fearless trial lawyers but none would be interested in taking on such a case. We need some whistleblowers at Substack or Stripe to come forward.
Thank you, Bill! For what it's worth, I don't think Substack is necessarily the culprit, at least from what I've observed. Every instance of censorship I've experienced has actually come from external companies targeting my Substack specifically and Substack in general. Debbie Lerman shared more details about my observations in this post, which I think you've seen:
• https://debbielerman.substack.com/p/is-substack-a-censored-platform
Tx for making the point it might not be Substack or Substack entirely. They must know though … and aren’t going to bat for any injustices being done to you and me.
Synchronistically, I had reached out to a Substack team member about the dropped email issue yesterday, and he got back to me this afternoon with a very kind note asking Substack Support to look into it. Hopefully, I'll have good news to report on that front soon.
Substack tech support is working on it, but in the meantime, I talked to tech support for one of the email providers that was having dropped emails, and I learned one of the blacklists they use (https://zapbl.net) does indeed have the substack.com domain listed as spam! This means any email providers that use that list for spam-killing will automatically block all Substack emails, which will result in them getting dropped. I have reported this to Substack and hope they can get Substack.com delisted ASAP as that affects all newsletters and is a serious concern for Substack's business.
Ok, I'm probably guilty of this. I prefer to read on the substack site - it's much easier for me to come over to the site and read instead of sorting out the substack mails and the personal mails.
That's all - no offence meant to any of you!
Thanks so much for weighing in whiskeys, and I totally understand! I am signed up to 1,000+ Substacks and am drowning in emails!
Hang in there Margaret Anna, you are amazing!
Aww, thank you so much, csofand! 🤗 Don’t worry, nothing can stop me from doing this work—it’s my life’s purpose:
• https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/all-our-stars-out-on-finding-cheng
I just have to figure out how to feed myself and my thirteen kitties while I’m doing it 😹
That is good news, about your resolve. But about those cats, 13! Wow. Good luck with that.
I believe this to be the "smoking gun" of Substack's official shadow-banning policies:
https://freedomfox.substack.com/p/alert-substack-shadow-banning-deployed
In the beginning of June Substack made an update to the platform that gave authors automatic comment moderation via a toggle on the Stack's settings. "automatic moderation." Factory default to "On." Which we noticed when the light gray "replies hidden" prompt at the bottom of the comment section appeared.
By research and investigation, including using Substack's AI chatbot, it was discovered that the autocensorship is factory defaulted to SS's "community standards." Which land comments into the "replies hidden" zone. That being an author-controlled feature, those of us who identified it and followed how to turn it off are back to free speech on our Stacks. Many authors have not noticed, and many authors prefer it. I've stopped following those authors who support censorship.
But the bigger picture of the revelation of SS's "community standards" is that those are, in fact, provable, Substack's "community standards" for the entire platform. Which apparently have been in effect since 2022-2024 some time. Around when the highly censorious Europeans demanded all platforms comply with their censorship rules.
And with those being SS's "community standards" we can infer, be certain that contrarian Stacks like Bill Rice's Newsletter and mine are also in a SS "hidden stack" zone. I now call it the SS Ghetto. But unlike on Stack comments where we see "replies hidden" as an option we can click into, there is no "Stacks hidden" tab we can click into. Apparently they know the temptation of forbidden fruit would draw more attention to them.
So SS Ghetto Stacks don't get featured, recommended, suggested, aren't populated when searching for key words on topics that other readers will see. Only if a Ghetto Stack is searched for with precise words will they be shown. And SS Ghetto Stacks will often be recommended to those who subscribe to and primarily interact with SS Ghetto Stacks. That's it. No ability to build readership, followers, subscribers unless an independent marketing campaign is able to direct readers to it.
This is the classic Elon Musk version of the Freedom of Speech, which he stated doesn't equal Freedom of Reach. This is how and why Bill's Stack and all of the Ghetto Stacks are hemorrhaging readers and subscribers. SS's comment policy they unveiled in June revealed the hidden hand that's been working for 2-4 years now.
So now we know. What do we do about it?
Thank you, FF. This has the ring of truth to me - just like your theory that the flu shots probably/might have something major to do with Covid outbreaks. (That's another theory that, if proven, would be thermo-nuclear. I've talked about it a fair amount in my Reader Comments but ... I don't think large numbers of people are seeing my Reader Comments.)
With all due respect, Freedom Fox, and Bill, I strongly suspect the censorship is considerably more direct, malicious, and nefarious that the system you're describing. I'm not saying you're wrong about this sort of shadow banning having been recently instituted by Substack. I'm just saying I'm fairly certain it's not the whole story, nor even the most significant reason why your Substack, Bill, has been hemorrhaging readers.
As a thirty-six (or possibly longer) year veteran of torture, I've learned to trust my instincts about anything strange, weird, threatening, bizarre, suspicious, etc. The number of ways victims can be and are targeted is essentially infinite. The spy agencies have unlimited money and power. They employ vast armies of gangstalkers and digital stalkers. I wish more people understood this. The sooner you wake up to the reality we're living in, the better.
www.targetedjustice.com
www.neuropsychwarfare.org
No illusions, TB. I've been targeted by trollbots and paid malicious, nefarious actors on this platform. Some that will instantly create a mocking parody account, typically triggered when you respond to a trollbot. They target their snark and try to get their prey to bite, the response generates the malicious propagation of spam accounts that reputationally damage. The saying, "don't feed the trolls" is the wisest way to avoid. Here's one example of a trollbot that replicated me about 8 months ago that still actively trolls me:
https:// freedomfux[dot]substack[dot]com
(reformat that to normal, I break it up just to throw the trollbots off)
Others will use the same url account but change profile names regularly to imitate their targets. Several of those have gotten me. Those trollbot types find another target and morph into them, constantly rotating. I've identified certain patterns, many have the same followers, following, reads and subscribers. Most all follow or are followed by On Substack and other SS official information dissemination pages. Those pages serve as a sort of central hub, identifying what is dis/mis/malinformation and the trollbots they know are here take their cues and go after targeted writers, trolling for commenters.
It is wide and deep. Back to my final question, What do we do about it?
I'm almost certain such a troll/bot coordinated campaign was used to quickly scuttle the presidential campaign of Florida Governor DeSantis.
When DeSantis announced he was running for president, he was easily and without question the most popular Republican politician in the country (except for, I guess, Donald Trump). He was a "rock star" and the one politician who stood up to the Covid lockdowns. (He also was battling Disney and its DEI initiatives.)
Within days or weeks of announcing his campaign, "someone" went to work on a campaign to instantly discredit this person.
I lost count of the number of Reader Comments at influential "conservative" sites (like Zero Hedge) that attacked him (ironically today) as a neo-con and Jeb Bush clone who was extremely corrupt and incompetent.
Out of the blue, these posts were everywhere. Anyone who tried to defend DeSantis (like I did) was instantly attacked in the Reader Comments sections and these posts received very few "likes" and many down-votes or "unlikes."
Soon - remarkably fast - the narrative on DeSantis flipped 180 degrees, which killed any momentum for his campaign, killed his fund-raising efforts and, reading the writing on the wall, he quickly dropped out of the race.
IMO, this could not have been an organic, legit grassroots movement. It had to all be coordinated.
I think people can relate to this as, all the time, we see talking heads all saying the exact same thing - using the exact same phrases and talking points - which is obviously evidence of a coordinated narrative-control op.
In short, such projects are, indeed, very common - they work and they are sinister.
As I wrote in one of my most politically-incorrect columns, the same thing happened (IMO) with this sudden move to cast mixed-race couples in all TV advertising campaigns. That was also, clearly to me, coordinated and some kind of conspiracy intentional operation.
With DeSantis, the narrative used to scuttle his campaign and denigrate his reputation was that he was a neocon who was taking orders from Israel (I don't know,, he might be). However, look at the president who was elected - he's even worse.
I always thought, with DeSantis, one reason "they" might have wanted to defeat him is that they thought he would/might question more of the "authorized" Covid narrative and would maybe go after the "safe and effective vaccines." That is, Big Pharma might have been behind this op? That is, they knew Trump wouldn't do anything to hurt their business (even if Trump did appoint RFK, Jr to his cabinet).
... But these "bots" and trolls - some obviously paid - are indeed everywhere and employed against people/influencers they perceive as a threat that must be discredited and effectively silenced or muted.
More so than ever in the world, everything seems to hinge on "narrative control" and this objective depends on various forms of censorship or shadow censorship operations.
IMO, this even affects me and my newsletter. (For example, I just checked my Page View metric for this "provocative" and "significant" story. Almost 24 hours after I posted it, it's produced only 2,500 "reads" - which is a "reach" number that's obviously not going to change anything or threaten anybody in power.
I have a lot of thoughts about DeSantis, living in Florida since 2020 after the state I was living in went full Covidian. Primarily that he, himself is a construct, the myth of him, his governance frequently departed from the reality of his governance. Lots of big declarations and proclamations that Florida was the "free state" and not going to be this or that DEI/Woke/Tranny/Medical tyranny state. Great press conferences, headlines, follow-through was usually lacking.
I was happy to be in Florida compared to where I had been, and compared to most other states. But he was largely, "All hat, no cattle" on a lot of things. And I'm under no illusion that if he had lost to the Crack Ho Andrew Gillum in 2018 that Florida and most of the nation would have had a much different Plandemic experience without the vocal and performative pushback on medical tyranny that DeSantis at least delivered.
Only 33,000 votes out of 8.2 million cast prevented Florida from being just like New York. The former mayor of Tallahassee was a known meth head/crack addict rentboy male prostitute. Known to local media and Democrat officials, anyways. Who ignored it just like they ignore all their drug addict pervert criminals they put up for elected office, knowing how easy it is to control them with kompromat. Gillum most recently arrested in your Alabama, Mobile-area suburb. More meth, who knows the real circumstances of the arrest. He was found passed out naked in a pool of vomit in a Miami Beach hotel a few years ago, a wealthy, flamboyant "John" had paid for a night party rump romp rave with Gillum and another rentboy that got the hotel's attention and police called, pictures leaked, yet his political connections kept him out of trouble in D-controlled Miami. Even the Daphne, AL police seem to be covering up what they can in his latest arrest, floating the marijuana possession part of the story, saying nothing about the meth/crack and other rentboy activities that I suspect were involved. 33,000 votes from that guy running Florida. Eeesh.
Sorry, sidetracked, but topical and in your state, so had to share. Back to DeSantis, just know that most of what he is credited with doing were loud barks, small bites. I even remember having to play hide-and-seek with sheriffs on boats on the Fourth of July, 2020, who were running people out of parks along the intercoastal watching the boat parade with lots of flags, being threatened with arrest for endangering all the community by being outdoors...in a park...on Independence Day, you know, celebrating freedom and all, because, the "free state of Florida" was so free and all because a bad cold had circulated a few months earlier, and 'mostly peaceful' riots and large protests were allowed to fill our streets six weeks earlier. Nothing says "freedom" like being chased off an island park by county sheriffs landing their boat and threatening to take us to jail. So many other examples.
And DeSantis was backed by the same Woke/DEI/Big Data/Tranny-loving medical tyrant oligarchs and DC insiders his public pronouncements were aimed at. He just named the Woke/DEI/Big Data/Tranny-Lover former President of Univ. Alabama to head the Univ. of Florida. Thanks for that one, Bill! And he allowed the lawfare raid on Mar-a-Lago when state and local police could've controlled and prevented that just like state and local police stop ICE agents from enforcing federal law in blue states. He played dirty, duplicitous pool. That little (non)-move probably did more to ensure Trump would win than anything else, If DeSantis had stood up for Trump he might have been heir apparent. Trump sat on sidelines waiting to see another candidate jump in who would take the baton from him; none did.
NONE of that is to diminish or dismiss your point about trollbot armies and what was done after his campaign launch. His Twitter launch was a disaster, lots of bugs, servers crashing. Who knows, maybe that was orchestrated, too, and not just incompetence? His wife was cosplaying regular, ordinary Floridian, her silver spoon lifestyle she tried to straddle made her an awkward campaign prop. It was a terribly inauthentic campaign that sank him, though. Whether or not the trollbots made his collapse faster is the only question, he had no chance, highly stage-managed. What happens when delusions of grandeur meet up with expensive campaign consultants who were more interested in getting rich than winning an election. The graft from his campaign was jaw-dropping, burned through a couple-hundred million dollars on next to nothing but consultant fees.
Too bad, I liked his rhetoric, was glad he was governor then, still is one of the best governors in the nation today. But not presidential timber.
Consider it this way.
The same ‘forces’ that have pushed the meteoric growth in Stacks like Robert Reich to over 1 million in a short period, are at work in the opposite direction.
There is no way in any universe that a million people (with a very high paid rate) want to read anything that seditious jerk writes.
It’s the same op. Just flowing in the opposite direction.
Remember. When DOGE arrived in DC a year ago one of the first things they discovered was the 10s of 1000s (it may have been 100s of 1000s) of subscriptions being paid for directly by the govt. And indirectly via USAID and $ flowing to NGOs. NY Times. Politico. Axios. And I think some left wing alt news sources, Substack included.
I think they shut most of it off. But the op didn’t go away. And they are certainly using AI to make it look ‘organic’.
Other writers have similar complaints.
I’ve thought the same thing - opposite ops to produce opposite results. For the first 3 years of Substack, the Contrarians were blowing up and the Reich’s of the world thought Substack was only for Nazi’s and kooks. Everything flipped.
Yep. And like you said, its not organic. That’s pretty obvious.
It's coordinated, planned, intentional and results that are produced due to the efforts of many people and organizations. That's the "sinister" and "scary" part.
I remember that. It flipped like a pancake.
UPDATE (11:07 A.M. CST Wed):
In yesterday's story I wrote: "In recent months, I’ve been losing approximately three to five total subscribers every day."
This is an example of me using conservative figures. I just checked and 21 hours after I published this story I have lost six more subscribers.
At the moment, I'm thinking of these six "subscribers" who decided to now go ahead and unsubscribe to my newsletter (actually, five unsubscribed in one hour).
I can't help but think, "What are these people thinking? What agitated or motivated them to now unsubscribe to my newsletter?" My assumption (which is no doubt a false assumption) is that people subscribe to a newsletter after they read one or more of my stories, decide they like my writing and hit the "subscribe" button (97 percent of my subscriptions are free so they are not out any money or unsubscribing to save money).
Thus, they must know I'm going to challenge authorized narratives. They must know one area I focus on (because few other Substack authors do) is "curious metrics on Subtack."
But, these readers suddenly have a change of opinion and, within an hour, five of them decide they don't like my essays and thus unsubscribe?
At least to me, this scenario doesn't seem overly plausible or likely.
Which, thus, informs my opinion that many of these "subscribers" must not be real, live human beings. Furthermore, when they did subscribe, they weren't real, live human beings either.
So who knows how many real, live human beings are actually getting and reading my articles. I certainly don't know. I just don't think this number is 7,510 (previously 7,516).
As one of my real human readers posted in this thread, "everything is an illusion."
... One might read the above anecdote and conclude, "Well, these readers just don't agree with your take on 'possible funny business' on Substack and are using their prerogative to unsubscribe to a reader who expresses views counter to their own.
However, as I have found, the content of my stories doesn't matter a hill of beans. I lose the same number of subscribers - usually instantly - whatever topic I write about.
For example, a couple of months ago I wrote a piece on the "Death of Hollywood" and how I thought the current "Best Picture" movie is awful. That story also lost "three to five" subscribers in one hour.
I could write a story on how much I love cute puppies and that essay would lose me five subscribers and five to 20 readers would instantly "disable their emails" to my newsletter.
In fact, I've studied this. When I go a few days without posting a story, I don't lose as many - or any subscribers.
This, in fact, informs one of my new surreal maxims - the key to growing your Substack is to NOT publish stories. This isn't a joke either. As I have pointed out, Igor Chudev (sp?) hasn't posted a new story in more than 16 months - and he is still in the Top 50 of Substack authors in the Health and Politics category. After he quit writing stories, Igor's Substack grew by at least 1,500 subscribers.
Most of my unsubscribes come because I am no longer interested in the topic or I got too many emails for new posts.
Another quick update: I just got a notice that says I've added four new free subscribers in the last 22 hours.
I have also now gone up one subscriber from 7,510 to 7,511, which means I've lost "only" five net subscribers with this article.
However, these notifications deserves further analysis.
When I posted this article, I had 7,516 subscribers. As I just learned, I've now added four new free subscribers - which would take me up to 7,250. However, I only have 7,511 subscribers - which actually means that NINE "subscribers" have unsubscribed (not five).
Furthermore, my guess is at least one or two of my new subscribers are bots, probably designed to camouflage my real subscriber attrition. (Probably 1 to four of these new subscribers will soon unsubscribe.)
IMO, somehow fake bot subscribers are being used to conceal the loss of all my real subscribers.
I also, I now see, I just lost another two paid subscribers ... and those hurt more.
Anyway, what do I always write? "Post while you still can!"
UPDATE: Thirty minutes after I posted today's article, I've received four notifications of subscribers who have "disabled their emails" from my newsletter. Per experience, this number will grow rapidly. I'll update the 24-hour figure tomorrow at around 2 p.m. CST.
Also, I just checked my dashboard. When I published this article, I had 7,516 subscribers. I now have 7,511, meaning five subscribers instantly unsubscribed.