Fighting back against Substack censorship
The imposition of age verification is censorship
Some of my subscribers have faced age-verification checks when accessing parts of my content, I think this applies both to Substack Chat and Substack Notes, but I am not sure about the impact on Notes. Through various conversations with colleagues, it seems that other writers have also experienced this and like me have seen significant falls in paid subscribers. These falls have been quite sudden and are completely against a trend of steady growth suggesting this development is due to external interventions by Substack and not market forces. These age verification restrictions ONLY seem to apply to dissident content, so as a user I can easily access mainstream style commentary like Free Press without any challenge.
In some threads people have suggested that Substack is only complying with legal requirements imposed under the Online Safety Act (OSA) in the U.K. That explanation is entirely false, since age verification is ONLY required for adult content (pretty obviously). Since neither I, nor any of my colleagues, produce anything like adult content, the classification of adult-related content applied by Substack is completely unjustified. Substack itself refers to the possibility of “mislabelling” and offers a standardised short form you can use to appeal such “mislabelling”. Rather than going down that route where you cannot provide any context, nor claim any compensation, I decided to write to the CEO with a copy to the Standards Team. Once we get to the bottom of how and why Substack imposed these age restrictions then I would like to be fully compensated for loss of revenue, which started falling precipitously exactly when Substack started wrongly applying age-verification procedures.
In the next week or so I hope to be able to get some co-signatories so that we can approach Substack management with a larger group with up to 80,000 subscribers in aggregate. I will be approaching co-signatories next week, with a view to sending this letter out around 7th Jan 2026 (see below).
First post 2026
Early in the new year I want to write a shortish post about who “they” are and what “they” want. In this instance “they” are the oligarchs and key functionaries who seem to comprise the de-facto ruling power of the Collective West. I will be naming effectively a cabinet with members covering energy poverty, censorship, de-population, open borders etc. Before signing off for 2025, I’d like to remind subscribers that I don’t just write about how messed up things are or obsess too much over who “they” are, but also propose remedial solutions and two important posts on fighting back are “winning the omniwar” and “OK, give us some solutions” which are worth looking at.
In the meantime, I wish you all Happy New Year for 2026!
Best wishes
Alex and company.
Draft Letter to Chris Best, Chief Executive of Substack Inc.
Mr. Chris Best
Chief Executive Officer
Substack Inc.
San Francisco
Via Substack @chrisbest
Copy:
Standards and Enforcement Team
Via e-mail: tos@substackinc.com
[] January 2026
Dear Mr. Best
Wholesale censorship of UK related Substack writers
Collectively we represent Substack writers with over [80,000] subscribers in aggregate. Many of us have been contacted by our subscribers informing us that Substack has imposed age verification requirements in order to access parts of our written content. These restrictions seem to apply to both chats and Notes function, the impact on regular posts is less clear. A screen grab of an age verification challenge is shown below.
The introduction of these age verification checks has a material negative impact on our subscribers and all of us are, to varying degrees, experiencing significant contractions in paid subscriber numbers from the point at which Substack started introducing these checks.
Substack has written about its general opposition to legislation1 which seeks to police free speech and has suggested that the U.K. Online Safety Act (OSA) is the reason why Substack has had to introduce age verification restrictions. However, this explanation does not appear to be valid in the case of the OSA, which should have no impact on our accounts, or on our subscribers. Under the U.K. Online Safety Act (OSA) regulated providers are required, inter alia, to introduce highly effective age assurance (HEAA) to prevent children accessing “primary priority content” such as pornography and content encouraging self-harm and to prevent access to “priority content”. Substack also publishes it own list of “content restricted to adults (18+)” which is largely derived from the OSA2.
None of our accounts comes anywhere close to producing any content that could be considered to be “primary priority content” or “priority content” or that falls within the scope of Substack’s own list of content restricted to adults. Substack’s imposition of age verification requirements appears to be unjustified. In fact, Ofcom recently made it clear that there are no provisions in the OSA that require age verification steps to be introduced for content that is not harmful (see recent Ofcom post3).’
Introducing such age restrictions may represent a breach of Substack Inc’s requirement to protect “users’ rights to freedom of expression” as set out under Part 1 , section 1 of the OSA. Substack acknowledges the possibility for potential errors and “mislabelling” of account content. However, it appears very unlikely that these restrictions have been applied to a group of accounts who, broadly speaking, produce similar content that challenges the mainstream narrative by chance. In our capacity as users, we have not faced any equivalent restrictions when accessing mainstream media content posted on Substack, for example by the Free Press (@bariweiss). The selective classification of our content as age restricted does not appear to be a random “mislabelling” error.
In line with Substack’s requirement to act transparently, we would be interested to know how it was that our content, or parts of our content, came to be identified as age restricted. Was this determination made by algorithms, what key words or phrases were searched for in order to achieve this determination given the fact that none of our accounts include bad language, indecent images or anything remotely resembling adult content. We believe that regulated service providers are required under the OSA to provide transparency on such matters.
We hope that we can engage constructively on these concerns and we reserve the right to seek compensation in the event that it is confirmed that our accounts have been wrongly targeted and our subscribers inconvenienced. As noted above, most of us have witnessed material reductions in paid subscription income starting at around the time that Substack Inc. started introducing age verification requirements on our content. These reversals have been significant and completely against long standing positive trends, again suggesting that this is result of your actions rather than a result of market factors.
You will doubtless be aware that the Trump Administration takes a dim view of infringements on free speech and the imposition of censorship and has recently sanctioned non-U.S. nationals who were deemed to be restricting free speech of U.S. citizens.
I hope that we can achieve some constructive dialogue on these points via e-mail, Substack messaging or face-to-face discussions. We are open to any such dialogue, but do not wish to be referred to the OSA standard appeal form given that the small comment box does not allow a multi-writer submission, does not allow the inclusion of any context and does not allow us to raise the question of compensation.
We look forward to hearing from you in due course.
Alex Kriel
Founder @Thinkingcoalition
Signatory 2
Signatory 3
Signatory 4
Signatory 5
Signatory 6
Signatory 7
Signatory 8
https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/42995419870100-Substack-18-Content-policy#:~:text=Substack%20supports%20a%20wide%20range,illegal%20or%20age%2Drestricted%20content.
I've forwarded my own open letter to Substack leadership, see: Will Substack Remain a Platform for Free Speech - or a Biometric Gate? https://elizabethhart.substack.com/p/will-substack-remain-a-platform-for
It seems to me to be telling that the UK and Australia are at the forefront of implementing controls on the internet, under the guise of 'online safety'.
Is it a coincidence that these countries were at the forefront of the manufactured COVID-19 crisis, a scandal that up to now we've been able to discuss on Substack?
In Australia there aren't serious public forums provided by government where people can discuss important matters of policy, we're reliant on platforms such as Substack. And before 'Covid' it was very difficult indeed to publicly question vaccination policy.
As someone who has spent years seeking transparency and accountability for taxpayer-funded vaccination policy, and more recently for vaccine mandates, I can attest governments are not working for the people. The last six years have shown governments in supposed 'free countries' run roughshod over freedom on the basis of a 'killer virus' that didn't kill most people.
Are these authoritarian governments now seeking to impede access to forums where people have been able to speak and share commentary without censorship, i.e. Substack?
It seems to me we are facing the thin end of the wedge...which is widening...
I now do not appear to be able to use the Substack chat function without verifying my age. I will not continue to use this medium after my current subscriptions expire, sorry creators.