Twitter bans Substack

Spoiled brat Elon Musk today banned all links to anything written on Substack from his increasingly right-wing platform, Twitter. That means neither I nor you nor any of my Twitter followers can post my columns, retweet them, or comment on them in any manner on what can only be seen at this point as Elon Musk’s personal “Truth Social.” If you write for the right-wing websites Gateway Pundit, or Breitbart, or Daily Wire, or NewsMax, or RedState, or The Corner, or Fox News, that’s fine, you will continue to be able to post your links on Twitter. Only Substack is banned.

Tonight, I clicked on a link to my column posted by a reader on Twitter about Justice Thomas’ lavish vacations with right-wing Republican super-donor Harlan Crow. Here is what came up:

Warning: this link may be unsafe

Justice Thomas and his regular guy vacations

The link you are trying to access has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially spammy or unsafe, in accordance with Twitter’s URL Policy. This link could fall into any of the below categories:

• malicious links that could steal personal information or harm electronic devices

• spammy links that mislead people or disrupt their experience

• violent or misleading content that could lead to real-world harm

• certain categories of content that, if posted directly on Twitter, are a violation of the Twitter Rules

So there you have it. A corner has been turned. According to Elon Musk, anything you read by me on Substack could be “unsafe,” “malicious,” “spammy,” and “violent and misleading.” Elon Musk is protecting you from my dangerous and threatening writing by banning access to it on his platform, which you will recall, he bought for 44 billion dollars and then immediately started to ruin. This is a blow against free speech for everyone. In my case, it will kill off a key source of new subscribers to my Substack column and the income that comes with them.

Welcome to Elon Musk’s First Amendment, where speech is free but not for thee.