It's Good to be Back on Substack-though it may only be temporary
Thank you so much to the community for all the great advice and support through being blocked by Substack
Once the Under-16 Internet ban started in Australia, I would not have been surprised to have been locked out of my account on FaceBook, X, LinkedIn or any of the other social media platforms where I maintain a presence. But getting blocked by Substack was definitely not on my dance card for 2025.
But here we are!
About 2 weeks ago, I logged in to post an update when I was greeted by this screen:
Now, Substack is not one of the platforms the government said needed to verify age so I was a bit gobsmacked by this. I had already received an email message regarding verification, but I thought it would only target those who didn’t have their payment details registered. In fact, I was so angry on behalf of those who could be affected by this breach of privacy that I turned off payments a couple of days before being blocked.
Meryl Dorey
Once I got blocked, however, no matter what I did, I couldn’t even SEE my Informed Choice page let alone anything else on Substack. I was getting email notifications of messages from my subscribers and posts from Substacks I subscribe to but I could not see anything on the web nor could I reply or respond. Very frustrating!
I wrote to Substack straight away asking for a .csv file with my subscribers (paid and free) contact details as well as a .zip file with my posts because according to Substack’s terms and conditions, those belong to me.
The email address for support had been conveniently shut down…accountability? Not at Substack!
So, I got Chat GPT to write a legalese letter which I started sending to Substack’s legal department and their privacy department as well. Every day. But no joy and no response.
Searching for Substack alternatives, I found several excellent ones but they cost between $100 and $300 a month US which was well and truly outside of my budget.
So I signed up for a Wordpress account. I have used Wordpress in the past and it is relatively easy to run…but not as easy to design and set up - at least, not for me.
So I was feeling very much like I was between a rock and a hard place until someone on FaceBook suggested that I send a copy of the email I had been sending off to Substack to their public LinkedIn Page and X thread. I did that and no joke - in under 2 hours, I got a letter from old mate Tex at Substack:
Hi Meryl,
Tex here from Substack Standards and Enforcement. Thank you for your message
After reviewing your account, we’ve manually updated your verification status so you should no longer encounter the content blocks.
You’ll also now be able to log in and export your subscribers if desired.
Tex
So, I was back on here - and the first thing I did was to download my subscriber list - I will be doing that on a weekly basis from now on.
If you have been locked out of Substack, I suggest doing the same. And it was also suggested that you send these messages on LinkedIn and X to Substack’s CEO, Chris Best.
What’s up for the future?
The plan is to get the Wordpress page up and running early in the New Year and leave Substack behind for good.
It’s a real shame because I have really enjoyed having a Substack page and building a list of readers and other Stacks that I like to read as well. It is also fairly simple for a Luddite like myself :-)
I cannot, however, continue to support a company that has so little respect for privacy, freedom of speech and just plain fairness. So I expect some time in the next 2-3 months to be moving from here to Wordpress.
What I have not been able to figure out is how to download my Substack posts (I’m not sure how many there are, but there would be many hundreds, I think?) so I can bring them with me.
If anyone here has any ideas of how to do that, I would be very grateful if you would let me know.
In the meantime, I’m back and happy to be able to stay in touch with you all!
