The previous post elicited one reply: “I am appalled.” As I reflected on that, I thought, “that was a very human reaction that mirrors my own response to this situation.” Then it hit me.

The Substack content moderation is being run by an AI bot, not a person or group of persons. That would explain its inability to respond appropriately to my comments about its claims of spam and phishing, as well as its apparent insistence on the presence of links that do not appear in my Substack posts. The bizarre “conversation” narrated in the previous post has all the marks of a chatbot with limited understanding of our language and of the content posted on Substack.

I could be wrong about this, of course, but I suspect pretty strongly that my insight is correct. In any case, sadly, I have requested that my Substack account be cancelled.

If Substack’s content moderation is in fact being run in whole or part by an AI-based bot, Substack should disclose that to its audiences immediately.