How Substack Can Suspend Your Account
Substack is designed as a safe place for discussion and expression as well as critique of controversial topics
Recently, I have seen two accounts that were suspended or missing from Substack, I was just talking to them a day ago.
I heard of Substack suspension before but this is the first time seeing it from someone I interact with got suspended.
What could possibly go wrong? I took my time reading the Substack TOS.
Ashley Schmitt, Author 📖 told me she was suspended from Substack, and Taqaddus Qamar just told me today her account was suspended on Substack too. Yet, I couldn’t figure out what went wrong with their account.
It seems that there has been a rise in account suspensions on Substack. Yet, I’m also still learning about their policies, so I went in to dig deeper to see what some of the reasons that may cause an account to get suspended on Substack.
These 5 I won’t be covering in detail as there are much more important or common ones that I see writer breaking their rules.
Legal — intellectual property rights, don’t infringe others' privacy.
Hate — no violence of any kind.
Private information — never disclose any information that is not yours without the express authorization and permission of others.
Impersonation — Don’t post brands that are not yours, copyrighted, etc.
Harmful and illegal activities — no abuse material of any kind.
Most people are safe from such activities if they are just writing and posting their own content.
Summary from Substack about infringement.
Don’t Infringe: Your Posts should not violate someone else’s (including Substack’s) rights. Don’t copy, reproduce, modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform, upload, display, license, sell, commercialize or otherwise exploit for any purpose any content not owned by you unless you have prior consent from the owner of that content.
When it comes to self-promotion and other engagement policies, here is what Substack has to say.
A few things to keep in mind.
#1 — Only add emails that you obtain from those who subscribed to you already
Substack is not a place to import email lists that you buy from any third-party websites. Don’t add people without their consent.
This part also talks about how any form of communication that looks like spam is not allowed, while I found Substack’s rules are written by more experienced policy writers.
Try to get away from these practices, as they will enforce them without letting you know if they think you are negatively impacting Substack in any way.
#2 — Don’t drive traffic outside of Substack if you don’t have to
Many think Substack is just another free place to talk and act however they want. Maybe for the time being, as Substack is growing, it may be looser, but it will close in on those breaking the rules. (They give you 3 chances, I believe, depending on what it is, of course)
Again, Substack is for discussion and critique of controversial issues, but there is a fine line of what you can do.
Substack does want all the traffic to remain on its site, as I do like how straightforward they mention it, shamelessly.
They don’t allow advertising of external products or services to any third party websites, for your own, it does not say.
This had me thinking if I can share my Medium link to my stories on Substack anymore.
Sharing other people's Substack links is okay, but they also have rules for that, too. Which we are going to talk about next.
#3 — Artificial or inauthentic activity may be intervene
This one hides itself very deep at the bottom of the policy.
I have to say that how they wrote the rules is clear but a bit hard to understand for those who do not care about the rules.
It’s like you read something and feel guilty if you break the rules.
After reading this part, I see that subscribe for subscribing will fall into this category for artificial or inauthentic activity.
It says it may intervene to remove accounts that do participate, so use it at your own risk, as it wants you to be responsible and moderate your own community.
I heard many have reported such activities.
If any breach the rules this is what Subsack may do
Reminder:
Plagiarism is not allowed on any platform.
Do not publish any material that was written or created by someone else and claim it as your own.
If you have any questions you can always send Substack an email about your concern.
Do you know anyone who has been recently suspended on Substack?
Thanks for Reading
This story was originally published on [Medium] and is cross-posted here for a wider audience.
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Using buy me a coffee link is okay or not?
As with all platforms, you're on rented land, so to speak.
That being said, it doesn't sound like there's anything in the rules that aren't unreasonable.
Blogging may be "dead" in a lot of ways, but it's about as close to having a deed to your little spot on the internet as you can get.
There's a lot to be said for digital archiving practices, especially for those who are building their businesses.
Something I've realized is that ideally, you'd want to work out your own business model before committing to anything. Most who start don't have one, so they end up subscribing to whichever one the platform provides.
If you're on multiple platforms, it can become overwhelming and exhausting to keep track of all the nuances.
Thanks for this reminder, Bin!