Measuring Online Power? Twitter vs. Substack (RATP #6)#

April 17, 2023

PK Dick novels activated my fanta-politcs mode. And the Twitter vs. Substack querelle provided some food for thought. I am back to Philip K. Dick and some of his novels, so I am in a fanta-politics mood.

This, together with the Substack vs. Twitter querelle due to the former introducing Notes leading to a ban by the latter, is the trigger of this newsletter.

The facts: a Recap#

Substack introduced a Notes function. I tried that after I wrote the first draft of this post (pro mode: on, Lol). Here is the outcome.

Twitter saw it as some sort of competition like bringing Twitter into Substack bypassing Twitter. So it banned (temporarily, it turns out) Substack links from Twitter.

This harmed Substack users as most of those using Substack professionally gain a lot of audience from Twitter. In fact, after you finish a draft you are encouraged to share that on Twitter. Not only sending the email out.

(Users using Substack more than I do reacted quickly to that. For example commented soon about links of custom domains being still visible. reflected on the issue saying that the ban was some sort of “push” to move to a custom domain).

Either the thing backfired against Twitter or Twitter decided it has showed his muscles. Now Substack-related links are back on the platform.

Some comments on the ban implementation#

The “ban” was clumsy, to say the least. The ban was with a matching pattern on the “substack” domain. Post from Substack hosted on a custom domain could go through (see the post on Heated).

I like to think about that “ban” as some sort of hotfix. “Hey! force push to master that whatever has ‘substack’ in the link got banned!”

The day after… “hey! Update the hotfix by expanding shortened links first!”.

In the meantime someone spotted that you can also search for “substack”… how do we handle the case? If people tweet “They are banning Substack links!!!” do we want them to see it?

So they hotfixed that by saying “If you search for ‘Substack’, show results for ‘newsletter’”. (If the hub of free speech does not want free speech paladins to reach for a piece of info, you gotta make sure they cannot discover this creative twist on free speech).

I can imagine the frustration of those joining Twitter in its allegedly new era of free speech defense. Ending up patching research and manipulating gathering information. (If you want to be harsher add something related to China vs. America and mention Tiananmen Square).

Bringing power in#

Even if the affair is over, I find it useful to reflect on it.

The interesting aspect here is the dynamic of power. Twitter (over)reacted and tried to cut down another platform/service and harm it. In the physical world you cut gas, chip supply (or break whatever supply chain) you have. A little bit more abstractly you can cut credit lines or access to credit (be it a bank or a country).

Online you cut traffic. And/or obscure accesses or make it more complex. Think about in store purchases or fees. TL;DR: no matter what story we tell ourselves about internet being free, giving everybody equals chances and opportunities (assuming you manage to have a decent connection) or whatever… there is protectionism online. And you don’t need a Big Firewall to be adopt such a policy.

Thank you New Twitter for reminding us about this.

Ok. Back to the affair. First question: did Twitter overreact? Some sketchy remarks about that:

  1. assume Substack is harming or threatening Twitter. How much traffic is it driving away from Twitter? Will it hurt it?

  2. ok, maybe it is Notes as a product that Twitter feared. It is hard to establish how much a new service will impact you before it is launched and used. Was Twitter expecting that all Substack users will use Notes and avoid Twitter? I am already using Substack without being on Twitter. And did that before we had Notes. I’d rather prefer markdown support than Notes. And, besides my personal preferences, pointed out some issues in the (current) design of Notes (decoupling notes and posts would be great).

  3. is Twitter expecting Notes to attract new users? So the new Substack will steal new users from the actual Twitter?

Whatever the answers are, blocking links does not look like the best way to react to the points we have.

What the reaction showed was that Substack is – at least for US users – dependent on Twitter. Now that we know we can turn to Substack.

On Substack. Power goes both ways#

Sorry for the joke on the newsletter. Let’s analyze the affair from the other perspective. Power and dependence relationships have two ways. Time to focus on Substack.

Assume Substack depends on Twitter. Why is it so? Well, Substack tells you to use Twitter to share your newsletter and grow your audience. We can say the dependence is by design.

Does Substack know about this? I’d say hell yes.

Why did they opt for Twitter? I’d guess because they focus on US writers and Twitter is the aptest social media for newsletters.

Of course, when Substack made that decision it was a different Twitter and even a different world outline.

Substack writers realized that this dependence can be an issue, as we saw.Private domains are now more appealing. (Way before Substack and Notes and the ban, I’ve read something I wasn’t able to retrieve saying Twitter can activate a “visibility business model”. Once a tweet reaches N impressions it will be no longer showed around unless you pay to unlock more impressions for it).

Aside from the single writers’ initiative, is there something Substack can do more proactively? Here it is time to go fanta-politics.

Substack breaking away#

What if, after “bridging Twitter into Substack” (i.e. Notes), Substack lays off Twitter? You finish a piece and you are asked to share the news on Twitter. So it is actually encouraging its users to produce content on another social media. And social media to be a place to be needs content. So, ok, Substack hopes to get more views from Twitter after the piece is shared. But it is also having its writers working for Twitter by thinking about a catchy way to tweet about the new Substack piece.

What is Substack prompts writer to share the contents also on… Facebook? (Boomerish) Instagram? (cool, will require some redesign on the sharing mechanic, probably) TikTok? (maybe not the standard option but, hey, we have book tok and people read there as well).

Or you can stay conservative and move to Mastodon. New Twitter boasted Mastodon even more than the creation of the Truth platform (at least from the news I’ve read here in Europe).

So why not move in that direction? I assume again numbers and the main audience matter.

Ok, what if you broaden the options instead of offering only Twitter? A basic button of “share on social media” with options? Maybe A/B testing tells Substack too many options in no option. And fewer people share.

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Platforms, Islands, and Internet#

Wander even more.

We have different platforms. Do we want them to be connected or do we want walled gardens? What can we do about it?

A lot can be said about New Twitter and the kind of contents it gives priority (while casting on itself the aura of the only place where democracy works or other prosaic things about free speech).

Let’s say that if you own a platform with some weight, chances are you’d favor some contents that resonates more with you. (A wide “you”. Ranging from values, ideology or, if you are a public traded platform what makes you or your board profitable).

In such a context, free speech can be a shortcut for what appeals to the owner of the medium. As you get content you don’t like, it gets harder (financially, idea-wise, etc) to get along with the free speech super hero image. It goes into every way and you can raise that critical point from whatever part of the ideological spectrum or values, etc.

Assume each platform owner, be it a single rich individual or a group of interested, union, lobby, or whatever tends to favor some kind of discourse or idea over others. So, well, it may well desire to limit the exposure of the things on the other side of its spectrum. What about saying… well, New Twitter is a private platform and it can de-platform whoever whatever. Or even ban links and restrict content (let’s skip the whole issue of content moderation and extra laws for that. There are no laws on Mars.)

Measuring Influence (and Power)?#

What this episode allowed me to realize is that I want some sort of metric to compare “hotfixed interventionism” or acts of online protectionism. Or even more. For example: what New Twitter did with Substack, the case of avoiding mentioning some news in a Newspaper, denying State patronage to an event about X… (Ok, mixing private things and state-sponsored events is probably another feature we would like to track).

Anyway, the idea is to try to determine the power of the medium and the exposure it allows. Then, whenever some sort of manipulation or restriction is applied, we divide by some metric to capture the lobby behind it.

So if a super wide “lobby” (citizens? members of minorities scattered around the world?) manages to manipulate this newsletter we get like a 0.something. We have a small number on top (for now 🙂 ) divided by quite a lot.

If you are the sole owner of a big outlet you get the outlet exposure. You have BIG PLATFORM NUMBER on top. And we divide by 1. What manipulation has more impact?

This is just scratching the surface. But it will be good. We will be able to compare “partisanship” on Twitter or on some other outlets. Think Il Fatto Quotidiano vs. Libero, mentioning Italian newspapers and media outlets quite famous for partisanship.

Of course, that is just the beginning. What about the money of the members of the lobby? Probably this is another asset worth including in the score. We can start with the hypothesis of Medium impact (say views) x lobby money. And we divided by the members of the lobby.

Looks promising, uh?