Why I'm Not Leaving Substack.
Fight or flight? My answer is to fight cowards like Andrew Tate
My first instinct when I saw that Andrew Tate had reached Substack’s “bestseller” list was the same as most of you. So I immediately sent out a missive via a Substack Note declaring that either he goes or I go.
Almost as soon as I sent it, a voice in my head said, “Not again.”
You see, I played that game before. When I learned about the kerfuffle over Substack Nazis, I was just beginning to set up shop here. I only had a few subscribers, so I bailed and set up an account on the Ghost platform.
If I’m being honest, much of that was because a huge crowd of overly sanctimonious gadflies on BlueSky declared that they wouldn’t read anyone who used Substack as their writing platform.
Nobody from BlueSky signed up to my fledgling Ghost account. In general, I found that most of these people are not interested in helping support unestablished writers. They’ll gladly share a post from a star, but that’s about it.
I’m not much of a social media guy, so self-promoting on Ghost was a losing proposition.
I returned to Substack.
I remembered all of this as soon as I posted my missive.
So, no. For now, I stay and fight. I fight racism, misogyny, and hate anyway. I might as well add him to my target list. Assuming that the Substack account in his name actually belongs to him.
About Andrew Tate’s “bestseller” status
Tate is not truly a bestseller here. He made a bestseller list of new Substackers.
According to his profile, he has a million free subscribers in just a few days of being on the platform.
Look. I know there are lots of jackals out there. But there aren’t that many. There aren’t so many that a million of them would jump onto Substack and subscribe to this nut within a few days of setting up an account.
Something is off.
The first name on his subscriber list is Karen Attiah, who joined Substack after getting fired by the Washington Post for honest comments immediately following Charlie Kirk’s murder. The Post fired her for having the audacity of posting things like this:
Tate is a proud incel and accused rapist whose most recent post included these enlightened words:
Women never earned the right to work.
They were tricked into it.
One man’s salary used to feed the whole family.
Now one salary can’t even pay the bills.
She trades her husband’s house for her boss’s office.
Who is Andrew Tate?
Andrew Tate is a social media “influencer” and incel popular with young boys and men. He made himself famous for hateful comments after winning a few fights on the pro fighting circuit.
He was indicted in Romania with his brother and four others for human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. He was also charged with sexual intercourse with a minor.
The charges landed him in a Romanian prison for several months. There was much whining on his part. Legal technicalities swarmed the case, and he was finally released, but it’s important to note that the ever-reliable ProPublica wrote a story with this headline:
The White House Intervened on Behalf of Accused Sex Trafficker Andrew Tate During a Federal Investigation
Because of course it did. Tate and Trump are made for each other.
You can read the ProPublica article here.
Tate is also wanted on charges in the UK, where, according to Reuters, he faces 10 criminal charges, “including rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain.” It’s unlikely that the Trump regime, which is actively trying to bury the Epstein files, will extradite him to the UK.
h/t to Susan Niemann for posting this link in a Note that describes in detail what an utter scumbag he is:
https://www.adl.org/resources/article/andrew-tate-five-things-know
Three things are possible here.
As an independent journalist, Attiah subscribed to Tate to monitor his hate messages. Or…
Tate scraped Substack emails somewhere and added them himself. Or…
It’s a fake account that harvested emails.
I can’t know which it is, but I can pretty confidently declare that those million subscribers are suspect. I would argue that Tate (or a spoof account) found a way to harvest Substack subscriber emails and created a CSV file to import them.
It’s easy enough to do, especially if you’re a specialist in the dark arts like Tate or you’re a moderately skilled hacker.
So if you want to get Substack to delete his account, and since Substack’s founders think all messaging is okay, including hate messaging, then maybe the way to approach it is to nail Tate (or the spoofer) on a technicality.
Substack claims they don’t tolerate email harvesting. Looks to me like whoever owns the Tate account harvested emails to build their million-plus subscriber base in record time.
So contact Substack and report the account for suspected email harvesting.
Linda Caroll said it perfectly in a Substack note yesterday when she said (I’m paraphrasing) that she’s not going to let toxic men chase her off platforms.
She didn’t overreact like I did. She said she’s sticking around.
I changed my mind about leaving almost as soon as I sent out the Note. I didn’t delete the Note because the underlying message is true: Substack should delete Tate or his spoofer. Substack’s grandstanding over free speech is bullshit. Freedom of speech doesn’t include hate messaging that inspires young men to hurt women and other targets of their rage. That’s a form of stochastic terrorism that has no place on a platform like this.
Tate incites violence, specifically against women. This is not protected by the First or any other amendment.
The intransigence of the Substack founders is a reminder that writers may need to prepare our exits someday, so I continue to routinely export my stories and subscribers. Just in case.
For now, I’ll close my eyes and pretend Substack is our platform. It isn’t, because it is subject to the whims of tech bros. But I’ll pretend as if, because I like it, and maybe we’ll get lucky, and somebody like ProPublica will make an offer the tech bros can’t refuse.
In the meantime, I’ll remain vigilant and continue to closely monitor the situation.
Notes
The comments on the Note I quoted provide more evidence that his “subscribers” are imported. Nobody comes to his defense under the Note. Commenter Melanie may also have a point:
It’s not even him. This is a fake decoy to cause outrage-interest. Look at all the “subscribers”, yet there are only 19 hearts and this post is 8 hours old.
Save yourself from the rage bait. Block and move on. Tate followers can’t read. Substack is not the money-making platform takeover this violent dolt’s PR team thinks it is
I’ve talked about Substack’s tech bro problem and alternatives to Substack before:
Thanks for reading!
It's so frustrating to know that the Substack leadership think this is even ok. Decency and character be damned. Someone asked them, "would you give Jeffrey Epstein space here"? That question proves the point so many of us are trying to make.
Glad you’re staying.