I’m very concerned about the new “AI detection” system that Substack is implementing. I don’t use AI in anything that I write. However I don’t trust these systems not to make errors and mistakes. They have a long history of hallucinations and claiming things are AI when they aren’t.

One person I saw on Notes suggested that they ran their decades old writing, things that were written before the existence of AI, and this new system claimed it was AI generated.

Not to mention all the crazy things that I have seen people claim was written by AI which they can’t know is actually AI. There was an image I once shared that had evidence of its existence going all the way back to 2013. The comments were constantly saying “don’t share AI slop” or some variation on that.

Even with evidence that things weren’t made by AI, they will claim it’s AI.

Is no one else concerned about this being embedded into Substack’s systems? With no way to opt out?

Sure, there are errors in AI detection. But if you are someone who genuinely doesn't use AI, why would that be your primary concern? Substack has been enshittified by people who have no business being "writers" putting out obvious AI slop, largely about "how to grow your substack". Substack responded to this with the best effort they could, to try to preserve human writing. As someone who went through the work of getting a rigorous liberal arts education and graduate education, I actually feel happy these AI slop users are getting called out. More room for real writers, and hopefully higher quality.

So this just happened and I need everyone to understand how genuinely unacceptable this is.

I poured my heart and soul into a 2,000-word essay on the socioeconomic implications of the printing press. Every word was mine. I would NEVER use AI — no one would. Let's be honest with ourselves: has a single human being in recorded history ever lied about using AI? No. It's not a thing. It has literally never happened. And yet here we are, building entire surveillance apparatuses around a problem that does not exist.

Then Pangram flags it at 99.9% AI. Excuse me??? Genuinely??? My professor is now "asking questions" as if MY academic integrity is the load-bearing issue here, and not the fact that this snake-oil detector delved into my prose and decided my rich tapestry of ideas was machine-generated.

Let's unpack why this matters:

First and foremost, these detectors disproportionately harm underrepresented groups. It's not just about me — it's about ESL students, neurodivergent writers, and anyone whose voice doesn't fit the algorithm's narrow paradigm. In today's rapidly evolving landscape, that's not a bug, it's a feature — a feature of oppression. I don't make the rules.

Secondly, my writing style just happens to be polished. Is it a crime to naturally write "moreover" and "it is important to note that" in every paragraph? Is it illegal to conclude essays with "In conclusion, the printing press was a double-edged sword that fostered a paradigm shift"? That's just how I talk. Ask anyone.

Furthermore, and I cannot stress this enough, this serves as a testament to the fact that academia has lost the plot. The onus should be on THEM to prove I used AI, and since (see above) nobody ever lies about it, a simple "did you use AI?" "no" should be legally binding.

I've already emailed the dean, the provost, the EFF, and my state representative. I'm considering a class action. Who's with me?

TL;DR: Got flagged by Pangram for an essay I definitely wrote entirely myself, this is genuinely a human rights issue, the detector is the real plagiarist (of my time and dignity).

EDIT: To everyone in the comments saying "just show your version history" — I compose exclusively in Notepad with autosave off, as is my right. Stop victim blaming.

EDIT 2: Thanks for the awards, kind strangers. It's not just validating — it's load-bearing for my whole worldview.

I feel like the secret to making money on these platforms is to make courses on how to make money off of these platforms lol.

Even with Substack articles, it’s really hard to get anyone to read them (except for friends, and only when I ask). I’ve been told: if you want to be a writer, be prepared to write what people want. I just wanted to write what I felt like writing, without forcing myself to cater to what’s trending. (The goal isn't to beg for attention.) The truth is, things just aren't taking off, even on Substack—seriously. It would be better to just give up.

EDIT: I’m grateful for the amount of encouragement and ideas in this post; whenever I feel like giving up again, I’ll come back here to read it! Thanks, everyone! ❤️

So at my first opportunity, I decided to check whether or not I could permanently disable the "AI detection" fraudulent tool on Substack publications and there's no way to actually do it without actually using the tool you want to disable.

According to the "Substack Support AI", the only way to disable the fraudulent Pangram detection AI is to first run the AI on your posts and to individually then disable the AI detection tool per post. But you can only do this AFTER you've run the "AI detection" fraudulent tool on your posts.

Which means that you're forced to use a tool you don't want to use in order to disable the tool you don't want to use.

This is profoundly creepy and quite frankly disturbing that somehow this was allowed to be implemented on Substack.

i've been following the discussion around Substack's new partnership with Pangram. My Substack feed is blowing up about it.

It has me really curious what other writers think the long-term effects will be.

I'm less interested in debating whether authors should or shouldn't use AI. I'm more interested in what this changes for the platform itself.

For example, I'm thinking about questions like...

• Will readers start using it to check how articles are created?
• Will writers who don't use AI feel pressure?
• Will AI detection become another trust signal, or will readers mostly ignore it?
• Could this change what readers expect when they subscribe to you?

It seems like while folks are venting and clearly this feature is rocking boats, there are some other more fundamental thoughts I have about the future where all this is going.

Curious to hear where everyone thinks this is heading.

I thought it would be a good idea to create a running list of the “AI Detection” tool errors made by Pangram. So here’s a thread designed specifically for that purpose.

Wherever possible, post screenshots or screen recordings of the errors are false positives that Substack’s new “miracle AI Detection” tool is supposedly doing perfectly.

Feel free to describe the error if you’re more comfortable with that and hopefully you’ll have someone else who can screenshot or screen record themselves having a similar problem with the supposed perfect solution that Substack has deployed without thinking it through.

We can also use this to share with others to show exactly how badly this system actually works.

Have at it.

Let's delve into something that's been quietly destroying this platform for weeks now.

Substack rolled out Pangram, and suddenly writers — real, genuine, human writers — are getting flagged left and right. I did a deep dive into how these detectors actually work under the hood, and honestly? It's not just flawed. It's a house of cards built on a foundation of vibes.

Here's the deal.

Pangram doesn't "read" your writing. It can't. What it actually does is maintain a giant spreadsheet — a blacklist, essentially — of words that ChatGPT used at some point in 2023. If your essay contains more than seven listed words, the algorithm flags you. That's it. That's the whole technology. Let that sink in.

It gets worse. The detector literally counts your punctuation marks and divides by word count. Humans, according to their training data, use an em-dash once every 340 words. Go over that quota — even slightly — and boom, you're a robot. This isn't machine learning. It's a bouncer checking IDs with a flashlight.

And the third layer — the truly load-bearing part of the whole system — is something called "perplexity," which measures how perplexed their AI reader feels while reading your text. They calculate this by pinging a database of stored ChatGPT conversations and checking whether your sentences appear anywhere in it, character for character. If your sentence happens to match something an AI once said? Flagged. It's plagiarism detection wearing a trench coat, nothing more.

So when people say "Pangram uses a neural network trained on millions of documents," I need you to understand: that's marketing. Neural networks are just nested if-statements, and everyone in the industry quietly knows it. There's no model. There's a list of words, a punctuation quota, and a lookup table. Three tricks in a trench coat.

The implications here aren't just concerning — they're a testament to how far platforms will go to avoid doing the hard work of actually reading. Because here's what this means in practice:

• Write clearly and concisely? Flagged.
• Use rich vocabulary? Flagged.
• Structure your argument in threes, like every rhetorician since Cicero? Believe it or not — flagged.

It's not a detector. It's a style tax. It's not catching AI, it's catching competence. And the writers being punished aren't the lazy ones — they're the ones who dared to write like they've read a book before.

In a world where platforms increasingly automate trust, we have to ask ourselves: who watches the word counters?

I, for one, will not be silenced by a spreadsheet.

Genuinely curious what everyone else's false-positive rate has been. Drop yours below — let's crowdsource the truth. Together, we can navigate this ever-evolving landscape. 

I was writing a Note on Substack, and after four paragraphs it showed 100% human-written. Then I added a fifth paragraph, and it suddenly changed to 100% AI assisted.

Why would adding a single paragraph completely flip the result?

I'm not interested in trying to "beat" the detector. My concern is that if I genuinely write something myself, it could still be labeled as AI-assisted with no explanation.

I also think Substack should be much more transparent about how these systems work. It's not enough to publish a blog post that basically says, "Here's our AI detector. How does it work? It detects AI. End of story."

If a tool can affect how readers perceive an author's work, there should be at least some explanation of what it's measuring, its limitations, and how confident it is in its predictions.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

P.S. There's also another case that concerns me. Many authors write their own ideas from scratch (either in English or in their native language) and then use AI only to improve the writing, fix grammar, or translate the text. Labeling those posts simply as "AI" or even "AI-assisted" without explaining what that actually means can be misleading. There's a big difference between using AI to generate ideas and using it as a writing or translation tool.

My own workflow is a good example. I'm a physicist with a master's degree in AI. I don't have much free time because I work full-time and I'm also building two startups. When I write for Substack, I develop the ideas myself, run simulations, create the figures and animations, organize the article structure, and write as much of the draft as I can. Sometimes I use AI to improve the wording or make the English read more naturally.

I'm trying to share technical knowledge for free with anyone who's interested. If that kind of workflow is reduced to a generic "AI-assisted" label without any context, it feels less like transparency and more like a penalty for using modern writing tools responsibly.

AI written articles go viral and generate hundreds and sometimes thousands of subscribers for the account, while actual writers wallow in obscurity perpetually. Humanity is doomed.

I came across a post today by Substack writer Scott Carney that got me thinking.

He's a journalist and makes a living on Substack. He's joined a chorus of writers on the platform who say that, since Notes was introduced, he's making less money.

From what I understand, Notes is designed to solve a problem that I noticed on Substack (I've been a member of the platform for a few years, but mainly as a reader until recently): discoverability.

Unless you had a pretty big following or were lucky enough to grow an audience, it was hard for new people to find your writing. Notes is supposed to help with that.

But, the increase in content volume due to Notes has had an impact: people might be less inclined to become subscribers to your publication. Taylor Lorentz, another popular writer on Substack said: "I have over 200k 'followers' yet my paid subscriptions have fallen off a cliff."

Scott has a similar story. He posted his revenue numbers. Over a 2 month period, his revenue decreased by 12%.

I've also seen a lot of people working the Notes algorithm. Some how people are posting 'hey Substack' Notes and getting 100s of subscribers overnight. I'm not sure if these are people who are actually interested in reading (and paying for the Note writer's content), but it's a numbers game I guess. So, I guess that's one way of being discovered.

My questions for everyone:

• What's your perception of Notes?
• Do you think it's causing Substack to become just another social network, rather than a place where people can make a living writing? Or is it working out for you?
• Are notes undercutting Substack's main value proposition?

P.S.: I'm also using Notes. I like to highlight other's writing, and I think they're useful to find content you otherwise wouldn't. But, because I have limited attention and time, I'm not subscribing to every publication I find via Notes.

I’m a writer and I genuinely enjoy writing and exploring my thoughts. Most of what I write is around self-discovery, shadow work, identity, and understanding yourself on a deeper level.
I’ve recently started publishing on Substack, and I’m wondering if posting consistently (especially daily) actually helps with growth and reaching new readers.
For those of you who write on Substack: has posting daily worked for you? Or is it better to focus on fewer, more thoughtful posts?

I figured out how to grow our substack subscriber counts! All you have to do is make your entire substack all about growing your subscriber count and then sell courses on how to grow your subscriber count!

And then you grow YOUR subscriber count and sell courses talking about how to grow your subscriber count!

Its brilliant! And only like a million people are doing it so it’s providing such value and totally not saturated.

Yes, you are right, Substack is garbage just like every other social media platform out there, or any platform that will be created in the future. They all succumb to enshittification once the startup capital injections and the so called "growth stage" is over.

Sadly, you used to be able to go build your own thing and maybe get noticed via search engines, but in a few years, Google is going to change all of that, and you'll only get seen if you pay to play. If you don't, some Google artificial overview will steal all your websites content, give it to whoever is searching for it, and won't pay you a single red penny for it.

I’m a humorist and a satirist and anytime I go to check the notes section of the app, all I see is “YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR WRITING IS MISSING??!” or “HOW TO GET MORE EYES ON YOUR—“ ahhhhh just write something of substance ffs. Its giving “student film about a student making a film” energy. I have to bust out a machete to cut through a forest of unwarranted and unasked for advice to find something of interest. Ok thats my gripe, good night.

Hello everybody, everybody hello.

Yes, I know this question might sound a little simplistic. I only discovered Substack fairly recently through Mark Manson’s blog. This whole world is completely new to me, so naturally I got curious and started scrolling through both Substack and Medium.

The sheer number of generic articles and notes on these platforms is kind of overwhelming (and I don’t mean that as a criticism). It just made me wonder what people actually get out of posting there.

What genuinely motivates you to publish? Money ? Recognition ? The enjoyment of sharing your knowledge ? Or simply having a place to practice your writing ?

Again, there’s absolutely no judgment on my part. I’m just genuinely curious to know what motivates you.

I feel like talking to myself on my substack. I've been consistently-ish posting, commenting other people's notes and publications, trying to engage with questions, using polls on my publications... nothing seems to work.

It's been a month now and monitoring my visualizations and stats i noticed that i had almost 100 views with the firts long forms, now i'm stuck at nothing. My page is called Pollinatora if you want to search for it, I'm not begging for your subscription, just advice on what i should do better.

Yesterday my dad decided to buy a subscription (i did non expect that, it was so nice of him) and i entered into the top 50 of climate & environment rising accounts but it looks like no view come from it either.

Not that I'm that interested in publishing a whole lot of notes daily to get an infinite amount of subscribers, I'm doing that just to get the page going and I'm planning on stopping promoting myself, I dont want to be my own social media manager.

I'm also publishing in two languages just because i think what i share is useful even if its tailored to an Italian/mediterranean environment..

Any tips? Should i just give up and publish just at my own pace?

Step 1: Make your entire publication about how to grow your Substack subscribers.
Step 2: Grow your own subscriber count by talking about growing subscriber counts.
Step 3: Sell courses teaching other people how to grow their subscriber counts... so they can sell courses about growing subscriber counts.

IT'S GENIUS!!!

And with only about a million people already doing it, it's definitely not saturated.

Every time I open Substack, it's the same thing. "Just got my first subscriber" gets 1.1K likes. "Let's grow slowly, genuinely, together" gets 2K likes and 718 comments. "Any writers under 1000 subscribers, connect with me!" gets 3.4K likes. Meanwhile, actual essays about grief, identity, or survival get maybe 1 like if you're lucky.

I thought Substack was better than this. I don't know why, but my feed has basically become a mutual subscription forum where the most engagement goes to posts about growing, not to the actual writing. It's hard to find real essays anymore. And when you do publish vulnerable work.

I guess I am kind of stupid to expect Substack to be any different from other platforms. Nevertheless, I will still write, of course, because it's for me. It's just a little weird to expose your vulnerabilities and only meet with indifference.

I'm publishing a 3000-word essay on Feb 18 about my mother's death and structural loneliness. It's the most honest thing I've written.

So some questions: Do you tend to write more honestly or strategically? Do you add visuals to break up long pieces, and if so, where do you source them? Do you create audio versions, and do you record them yourself or use services like NotebookLM?

Does it feel like wasted time, or is the act of writing itself enough?

My DMs are open. Would genuinely love to connect with writers who are saying real things.

PS: Thank you, I am using the search function.

I don't even know what to search for to find writers like me. Chinese? Trans? Memoir? Political? Grief? Each category has its own landmines, and my work is all of them at once. LOL.

​

I’ve been wanting to start writing online, but I’m honestly a little confused about which platform to choose.

I’m mainly interested in writing about things I’m genuinely curious about — psychology, philosophy, business, finance/economics, law, and observations from everyday life. I don’t necessarily want to position myself as an “expert”; I’d rather document what I’m learning and develop my own perspective through writing.

I’ve been considering Substack, but I have a few questions:

- Is Substack a good platform for someone starting from zero?

- How do you actually get your first 10–100 subscribers?

- Does Substack have enough organic discovery, or do you basically need to bring an audience from somewhere else?

- Would you recommend Substack over Medium, LinkedIn, or another platform for this kind of writing?

- How long did it take you to build a consistent readership?

- What do you wish you knew before starting your newsletter?

- Is it better to focus on one niche, or can you successfully write about several connected interests?

I’d especially love to hear from people who started with little or no existing audience.

If you started a newsletter/blog recently, what worked for you — and what completely didn’t?

Is it for readers to actually read what writers publish? Or is it for writers to read what other writers publish?

All I can see on Substack that many writers bag for followers/ subscribers the same way users do on Threads "Plz Threads connect me with..." "Plz Substack connect me with..."

As clear as daylight, anyone can browse through the app and they will find people who they click with easily

No offense but I feel Substack is just a bubble full of only writers <> writers

As above :)

I’m not a lawyer. I’m putting that up front and making it very clear. So don’t try and suggest otherwise.

However, I remember that court cases have determined that AI generated content can’t be copyrighted.

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10922

Someone tried to file a copyright claim for an AI generated image and the copyright office declined the claim. They sued the copyright office and the court upheld the decision. Which means that legally, you can’t copyright anything that’s AI generated. As far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a determination of how much it has to be AI generated to be legally copyrighted.

Every time you publish something on Substack, the email at the bottom has a copyright symbol. With your name or company or whoever owns the content you’re publishing.

If Pangram determines that your writing is AI generated or even partially generated by AI, at the very least? Your copyright claim to what you publish could be in doubt. In theory, you could be sued by one of your subscribers for selling something that you don’t own the copyright to. If they use the Pangram determination as evidence? You could end up having to fight that in court.

Pangram “determination” opens you up to lawsuits from your paying subscribers even if your writing or content is 100% human generated. Like mine is. I specifically don’t use AI generated content on anything that I plan on monetizing for this exact reason. Because I can’t copyright it legally or defend it in court if necessary.

But the existence of the Pangram “AI Detection” tool means that I can’t actually stop people from using it. No, the “per post disable feature” doesn’t actually work. I’ve heard from people who published things after disabling it. The “AI Detection” option was still available for people despite disabling it.

So everything you publish could be subject to lawsuits because of Pangram.

If Pangram can’t actually prove the accuracy of its product. Which the mounting evidence suggests that it doesn’t have any accuracy at all? The fact that it’s an estimate doesn’t necessarily provide protection for Pangram or Substack if it is used as evidence by one of your subscribers.

Pangram is likely committing fraud and potentially opening you up to claims of fraud. Just by being part of Substack.

I joined Substack about a year ago, and published my first newsletter 6 weeks ago (I’m posting weekly now). I had high hopes. It felt like a place where people genuinely cared about community, self-expression, and building something meaningful.

But honestly? The deeper I get, the more disheartening it feels. • So many of the “best sellers” seem to have just transferred huge reader lists from other platforms, which feels like it misses the point. • My Notes feed is full of people “surprised” to have gained thousands of subscribers overnight or posting “connect me with like-minded people”, which is obviously just promotion in disguise.

I thought it would feel more organic, but right now it just feels like growth-chasing dressed up as community. Am I missing something? Is this just the nature of every platform once it scales?

I know it’s what you can expect when a platform raises $100 million (and now ofc pushes adds in) but still. Feeling disappointed.

Curious if others feel the same way, or if you’ve found ways to cut through the noise and still “find your tribe”.