Users on Facebook have long complained that their posts are either banned outright or falling prey to “shadowbanning.” I have personally observed this on postings from the EricN Publication Facebook page where some postings do not even show up on my personal Facebook page. This topic is covered from time-to-time in my various posts such as A Sickening Feeling. We often lump all this sinister activity under the umbrella of “Big Tech,” or some extended network of political elites controlling the narrative on social media.
But there is another angle to this issue. An interesting inside look into the competition between social media platforms was reported in Substack. The report indicates that as far back as 2012 social media platforms began to throttle or simply disable the ability to embed links to alternative platforms. Twitter disabled embedded links to Instagram, Facebook has done likewise by de-prioritizing links to other social media platforms. Google prioritizes YouTube videos over Vimeo and TikTok in its search results.
Read the article, and in the process, become familiar with Substack. You will also get some insight into the inner-workings of publishing over the Internet. Also check out why I use Substack to dual-publish my work.
Finally, the Substack article uses an acronym that may be new to you: SEO. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” Basically, it is the technology that gets the word out, that improves the visibility of your work in search results. It is one major reason Substack is an excellent publishing platform. Websites, like this one, utilize “analytics” that indicate the pattern of discovery when an article is read. It is interesting to note that Facebook is the second most prominent source of links. In other words, people linking to either my Substack site or directly to this site do so through postings on Facebook. Thanks for the support and interest.
Eric Niewoehner