Weekly Digest: Substack’s Twitter competitor, more Twitter drama, Evan Gershkovich update

Substack Notes, the platform’s new feature for short posts that aims to provide an alternative to Twitter, was rolled out to all users this week. The product allows to post “almost anything—including posts, quotes, comments, images, and links”, the announcement says.

Substack Notes already drew wide attention last week when Twitter temporarily blocked sharing of Substack links in what’s been described as an apparent act of retaliation or an attempt to throttle a competitor.

While different potential alternatives to Twitter emerged in recent months as the platform has been trending downwards under Elon Musk’s leadership – such as nonprofit Mastodon or fledgling Post News – Substack has an obvious advantage as a place that already hosts popular writers and boasts 2 million paid subscriptions.

“Many high-profile journalists have embraced Notes as a way of deepening their relationship with their readers”, The Washington Post notes; though it’s still early days, and we’re yet to see how popular the product will become. 

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NPR became the first major US news organisation to ditch Twitter on Wednesday – because of the platform’s decision to label the broadcaster “government-funded media”.

Twitter has long had a policy of clearly labelling state-affiliated media organisations, particularly as an effort to counter the spread of propaganda. However, NPR is an independent broadcaster and gets only a fraction of its revenue from government funding. Twitter’s own policy has stated that “state-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media”.

As Axios notes, “Twitter’s move appears to be part of a wider effort by Musk to go after specific news outlets”, including also The New York Times. In recent months the platform’s owner – who seems to hold increasingly conservative ideological views – has widely publicised his scepticism of mainstream news organisations.

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The US government designated American journalist Evan Gershkovich as “wrongfully detained” this week, effectively making an official recognition that he is a hostage taken by the Russian state.

Gershkovich was detained a few weeks ago on bogus spying allegations while on a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg. For the past several years he has covered Russia and countries of the former Soviet Union for The Wall Street Journal.

The decision by the US State Department brings additional publicity and government resources to the cause of freeing Gershkovich. As WSJ reports, “the speed at which the designation was reached was unprecedented, as it typically involves a lengthy bureaucratic process that takes months”.

Source of the photo: Linda Kinstler

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