Elon Musk has underscored his interest in buying Substack as he pushes on with his fight against corporate media. Muks's purchase of Twitter for $44 billion was followed by an expose by prominent Substack journalist Matt Taibbi that revealed that Twitter executives had blatantly suppressed free speech to promote political views.
Renewal of Interest
Musk had dabbled with the idea of buying Substack, which is a subscription platform used by prominent journalists. On Wednesday he got into the Twitter conversation on Substack again, repeating that he is interested in buying the subscription platform that allows journalists to directly reach the readers and get paid.
"I'm open to the idea," Musk responded when Twitter user Leighton Woodhouse posed the question to the Twitter CEO. Woodhouse, a freelance reporter and documentary filmmaker, had criticized the response of establishment journalist to the Twitter acquisition by Musk. He had said the media establishment is interested more in protecting the state instead of exposing it.
Musk endorsed the view when the Twitter user said the combination of Twitter and Substack would create a massive competition for 'obsolete legacy corporate media'.
Serving State Not People
"Why is corporate journalism rushing to defend the state instead of the people?" Musk said, commenting on the cold response of the mainstream and corporate media on the Twitter Files.
Not just corporate journalists, Democrat politicians, left-liberal commentators, and various think tanks had reacted sharply to Musk's Twitter takeover plans. Musk had laid it out clearly that he saw Twitter as a modern-day public square and he, therefore, wanted to end arbitrary censoring on the platform. "Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy," Musk had said.
After the takeover of Twitter by Musk and the exit of top executives, journalist Matt Taibi released a series of reports on Substack, exposing the political agenda of Twitter's top leadership.
Free Speech Suppression
Another independent journalist, Bari Weiss, published more details on free speech suppression at Twitter following Taibbi's expose. Weiss wrote, according to Business Insider, that Twitter employees built blacklists, prevented disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limited the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics. All this was done in secret, without informing the users, he said.
What is Substack?
The Substack platform, which was established in 2017, allows independent journalists publish directly to the readers. The platform also provides publishing, payment, analytics, and design infrastructure to support subscription newsletters, according to IANS. Through the platform, the jouralists who sign up can send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. The platform was established by Chris Best, Jairaj Sethi and Hamish McKenzie.
