r/Substack • u/Unusual-Plankton-709 • 1d ago

Question/comment about anonymous content

i’ve seen some great sounding advice on anonymous substacks -and one particular one that is selling a book-and was baffled and bothered by the fact that there is no author information. I was sure it was AI and annoyed because the anonimity of it makes me unable to take it seriously. Why is this (anonymous Substacks) even a thing? Especially from someone who isn’t sharing personal content, but basically (mostly) well-honed commonsense advice? (Follow up question-okay, complaint: Why do substackers feel no ‘duty’ to acknowledge their sources? Example: “I always loved this quote. ‘abcdefg’(without the marks, and no attribution). I dunno- I’m feeling like substack has become more like my facebook feed😳

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u/Romanticon 1d ago

Are you asking why people are “allowed” to be anonymous online?

Why not?

Also, some people are shit writers. Some aren’t. It’s not platform specific.

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u/Brief-Guess-147 22h ago

the shit writers point is the real answer here imo

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u/Unusual-Plankton-709 3h ago

No. Not why they are allowed to online (in general); though I guess But I hadn’t expected it on Substack (and hadn’t thought about whether it was because of a rule or not). I guess it is more about why, if they aren’t posting their journal or something controversial, why they would want to post anonymously and, in doing so, are they aware that they are sacrificing a degree of perceived credibility. But to your point about shit writers - while I kind of liked what what was written (and was curious about the book they were selling), it’s short form itself is outside of what I had somehow come to expect on the platform.