Beware The Bottleneck!

     Time was, not long after the World Wide Web was opened to general use, there was this phenomenon called the blog. It was a shortening of weblog, which quickly fell into disuse. Blogs originated as a kind of online journal, a modernization of the diary, which was also visible to others. It seemed the perfect vehicle for recording one’s thoughts and travels… if, that is, one happened to be an incurable narcissist.

     It caught on, big time. And for a while, there were millions of blogs. Some were more popular than others. Some were more actively maintained and extended. But few were of that “original type” that functioned as an online diary. Most were about some specific subject in which the proprietor had a strong interest. And of course, the most popular such interest was current events / politics.

     But the technology of the Web was only just getting into high gear. Further developments brought us the mass media called Facebook and Twitter. As they became popular, the great majority of those millions of blogs fell into disuse. After all, they took work to maintain, whereas Facebook is maintained by faceless cadres of programmers paid by others. With Twitter it was much the same, though at first it limited users’ emissions to 140 characters. The “blogosphere” shrank de facto, such that today only a small fraction of those early blogs are still actively maintained.

     The originally sunny social-media picture didn’t take long to darken. The masters of those sites imposed controls – censorship, in the colloquial use of that word – designed to prevent the expression of opinions the masters deemed “harmful.” The suppressed communications soon included what the masters deemed “misinformation,” as well. Facebook, Twitter, and their imitators became tools for throttling the free exchange of information and opinion. Their users found they had walked into a trap.

     Go back to the blogs? It was a daunting prospect. The users of social media had become accustomed to the conveniences afforded them. Facebook, Twitter, et alii helped them to stay in touch with their friends and relations, and to make new contacts far more easily than did the blogging world. A bare few departed for other outlets. The social media’s campaign of censorship continued and intensified under pressure from government bodies and left-wing activists.

     Bottlenecks make censorship easy. When all the data is flowing through a single pipe, it’s easy to seine out the undesirable portion and ensure that no one ever sees it.

     Recently a new bottleneck has attracted considerable interest: Substack. This facility offers the prospective user a degree of simplicity comparable to that purveyed by the social media, albeit at the price of limited customization options. It also facilitates the construction of pay-to-read features, which is attractive to persons who think what they have to say is worth other people’s money. The icing on the cake is that the masters of Substack have promised that there shall be absolutely no censorship, regardless of anyone’s opinion of what’s “offensive,” “harmful,” or “wrong.”

     The Left doesn’t like that. Neither do the would-be censors inside the federal bureaucracy. And Substack, being a bottleneck, is easy to attack. Dr. Robert Malone takes note:

     For a while now I’ve been worried Substack would become a major target of the Censorship Industrial Complex for the hideous and dangerous crime of allowing free speech.
     This story from The UK newspaper the Guardian, which was picked up by Citizen Free Press, might be significant or at least bears watching.

     Dr. Malone cites several attacks and responses from that article, then continues:

     I for one did not know that Substack had “loads and loads of out-and-out Nazis on their platform.”
     But even if it does (which it doesn’t), I say (at least from what I know now), let them post away. The only Nazi-like techniques I see influencing any important narratives come from the government and its many fascist partners.
     Also, why didn’t this article give us some excerpts from some of these “Nazi” Substack authors? For example, are these posters calling for the extermination of the Jews?
     If these newsletter sites are advocating murder or violence, kick them off, but I don’t know that they are.
     Also, how many subscribers do these sites have? Out of the tens of thousands of Substack authors and 30+ million Substack subscribers, how many are Nazis?
     As usual, we get shocking charges with no examples given of alleged shocking speech.

     The important thing about this wave of attacks is that it is typical. The Left isn’t terribly creative; its activists tend to overuse a (previously) successful tactic until it rebounds against them. Accusations of “Fascist!” and “Nazi!” feature prominently in all left-wing activism. They have no other strings to their bow. Substack is merely their latest target.

     It’s also typical in that, as they want the biggest possible payoff for their efforts, Leftists invariably target bottlenecks. Facebook and Twitter were “low-hanging fruit,” and – with government connivance and assistance – were swiftly brought to heel. Substack, being another convenience facility with thousands of users and millions of subscribers, has been targeted for similar reasons.

     An anti-censorship regime is now in Washington, which will make the Left’s task much harder. Yet it will persist, for the thing Leftists hate most is when their ideological opponents get to argue with them. Leftism falls easily before rational argument and objective evidence; therefore, they seek to squelch those things wherever and whenever possible. While they lost the battle for control of Twitter when Elon Musk purchased it, that didn’t dampen their ardor to dominate all public discourse.

     I wish Substack, its proprietors, and its many users all the best. I certainly hope it prevails in its efforts to remain a bastion of free expression. That having been said: Remember that bottlenecks are targets. He who values his independence must beware them. There’s surely enough history to that effect.