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Looking very much forward to the posts!

I may have said this before, and if so, I apologize for the repeat post. I walked away from Twitter right after the self-proclaimed "Chief Twit" allowed professional Jew-hater Andrew Anglin back on to the site (for reasons that need not be recited here, that one hit particularly hard). I am so, so happy that Substack may be trying to recreate some of the community that Musk did his best to destroy. In fact, this could be so much better, because at least in theory, it "SHOULD" be easier to keep the trolls out.

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I look forward to interacting with you more on the new platform.

While I like Notes so far, I think it’s too early to say that it doesn’t have the problems that Twitter has. The platform has only existed for like 9 days. I’m sure Twitter was just as nice as Notes is now after 9 days of existence.

I’m reserving judgment until later.

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Fair fair Andrew. Though I believe twitter is imploding all on its own, regardless. And Notes just might become one of the dozens of tiny nails in its coffin.

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It’s certainly possible. I think Twitter is going through a massive restructuring. But it seems to be trying to become more like Substack. I never really used it beyond for advertising purposes. Not spending money on the platform. Just trying to get more organic eyes on things. It’s never been about political discussions for me or all the things people did.

Substack has been having some political discussions in my feed but I mostly stay out of it.

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Apr 20, 2023Liked by Amber Tamblyn

I get that for sure. I'm hoping for some community-level call-ins if things go haywire... something like "hey, you're new around here, but that's just not how we do things and we want you to feel safe and welcome to express your ideas so if you want to stay, we expect that you'll contribute to that for others, too." We'll see how it goes.

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Well I have already seen some not great things. I had someone spam me with responses unrelated to the topic at hand.

There’s also been discussion on the issue of moderation which got heated. Overall the experience has been positive though.

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How's the block feature? I haven't had to use it yet. I remember someone saying they were still getting tagged by the person, but I wonder if they've solved for that yet.

The moderation conversation will probably go on for a long while, but I’m glad to be a part of it. I don’t get the sense that the team wants to let free will run riot, but that first amendment thing sure is a doozy for Americans sometimes. I hope they can provide some good tools for writers to manage themselves rather than the platform making blanket decisions.

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I haven’t had to use the block feature either. My plan with the spammer was to ignore them. When I looked the next day, the spam was gone.

I think the Substack team is more focused on empowering individuals to make their own choices about who to interact with. Though even that could go too far, create echo chambers for people.

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Apr 20, 2023Liked by Amber Tamblyn

The echo chamber thing is an interesting thought. How do we prevent that in our offline lives? I wonder because I don’t think I'm great at it. I spend most of my time with people who have similar views and interests to mine. We have thoughtful conversations, but I'm not changing hearts and minds daily I don't think. The closest might be family events where politics gets brought up, but there haven’t been any lines drawn in the sand that couldn’t be raked over with some time and a little distance.

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Well I think it’s important to actively attempt to get as broad a perspective as possible. I’m subscribed to some people here who I don’t necessarily agree with on various issues.

Now that we have Notes, I’m seeing them interact with people in the space. I’ve adopted the policy of just ignoring anything that I don’t think can be constructive. That’s mostly worked out.

Though I had one person apparently take objection to my unwillingness to be overtly controversial and they unsubscribed to my Substack over it.

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