ALERT: Substack Shadow-Banning Deployed - SHARE With Other Authors

Our Hosts Changed Publication Moderation Settings Overnight, Default is Now to Censorship - Mirroring Social Media, Unannounced, Most are Unaware

Substack is now hiding comments made. We’re starting to notice this at the bottom of comments on many Stacks, “replies hidden”:

This is shadow-banning. Substack went live with it in the last day or so. And I used the Substack Chatbot to disclose what it did, even as it denied it did it. Once I saw how I realized the linguistic deception that Substack’s Chatbot used to say they didn’t begin shadow-banning, that individual author publications did.

The shadow-banning is a result of an update to publication settings that authors were not notified of, with a default to “ON” for “automatic moderation” for commenting. Here’s where and how they did it, and what needs to be actively toggled to “OFF” in order to restore free speech on the individual Stacks:

These are some of the reasons for censorship the Substack Support Chatbot provided. Note: Not all of these comments were mine, just pulled from other hidden comments I noticed before I began investigating:

“That example looks consistent with a publication’s automatic moderation, especially because it includes strong medical claims, treatment claims, and links or link-like references, even without profanity or threats.

I cannot confirm the exact rule that triggered it, but this does not show a confirmed platform-wide change from us; it still fits the publication author’s Reply Rules or moderation settings more closely.”

“That example also looks consistent with automatic moderation on the publication, especially because it discusses violence and executions in a forceful tone, even though it is framed as political commentary.

I cannot determine the exact rule that triggered it, but taken together with the other example, this still points more to each publication’s Reply Rules than to a confirmed Substack-wide change.”

“That comment is very likely to be hidden by a publication’s Reply Rules because it directly insults another person and uses hostile language.

So across the examples you shared, the common pattern is tone and content style, not necessarily specific banned words or a confirmed Substack-wide rollout.”

“That example also fits automatic moderation on an individual Substack publication because it includes hostile phrasing, medical-treatment claims, and violent rhetoric like “Tar & feather ’em.”

I still cannot confirm a Substack-wide feature change from what I have here, and the examples you shared continue to match publication-level Reply Rules more closely than a confirmed platform action.”

“That rewrite could still be hidden by a publication’s Reply Rules because it keeps the same overall meaning, confrontational framing, and references to punishment, illegal drugs, and named medications.

Reply Rules can adapt based on prior moderation decisions, so changing a few trigger words does not necessarily make a similar comment stay visible.

From the examples you shared, I still cannot confirm a new Substack-wide censorship feature; the pattern remains more consistent with publication-level automatic moderation.”

Whether or not you support what was written, the voice used by the writer, myself or others, the fact is that Substack went in overnight and added the Automatic Comment Moderation to individual Stack publications without any notification to the authors and set the shadow-banning as default to Substack’s ‘community standards.’ Using the same exact content moderation justifications found on other social media platforms. No threats, no obscenities, just objecting to tone, raising “medical treatment claims,” "insults” and other of the standard dis/mis/malinformation justification for censorship.

I am a small Stack author, not much current content published on this page, but I remain active commenting on Stacks with larger followings, many subscribers have subscribed based on comments made elsewhere. So please share this information widely to other authors and readers you have a chance to inform, most are not aware yet of the changes that Substack just made.

And what the replies from the Substack Chatbot tell us is that THOSE justifications are the Substack-wide community standards. And why many publications are shadow-banned on the platform. Without even telling authors. So while some authors may prefer the automatic moderation they must understand that their own individual Stacks are subjected to the same automatic moderation criteria that the Chatbot just described.

Substack just revealed its hidden hand that has puzzled many of the contrarian writers as to why they don’t grow their subscribers. Which is a monetary thing for writers who monetize.

For now they’ve given each individual publication control to remove the automatic moderation feature, by toggling the control “OFF.” But this is a leading indicator of what the platform is developing and will move towards if we give consent to this form of soft censorship, “shadow banning” by not actively toggling the controls off and encouraging widespread rejection of the censorship. This is a starting point, not an ending point. Unless we end it here.

In Free Speech We Trust!

Freedom Fox