me and substack aren't in good terms.

ported from kaifisahil.wordpress.com disclaimer: this is a mix of four posts together, chronologically sorted.

this is an account on what happened.

about a week ago, i go into my substack and see this.

“Your account is currently suspended. Something you posted may have violated Substack’s Spam & Phishing policy. If you believe this is a mistake, you can submit an appeal to our Standards & Enforcement team.”

i wasn’t amused with the decision, neither was i expecting that.

this post is an announcement to say that i have shifted over to wordpress.com for the time being.

i will be posting here from now onwards, and will export everything out of substack as soon as possible.

what’s worse is that they have significantly curbed my ability to interact with other people’s content. and even my own.

i cannot like, comment or even export my posts and subscribers in a seamless way.

edit: february 10, 2026

it took me about 3 days to get the list of subscribers from substack (and no, they weren’t helpful). i had to figure each one of you out one by one, and i had to do it myself lol. it’s worth it to be honest, no worries at all.

i plan to have my own domain (along with my own infrastructure) once we are 1,000 people strong. i’m looking forward to that moment.

gotta own my own content and infra as much as possible from now onwards.

i will be using wordpress for the time being. and if i like it a lot too, then i might just stay. but the long term plan is to self host EVERYTHING.

stay on the lookout.

– K.

well, guess who got banned from substack.

and the snowball starts from here.

So, as you might know (or notice), I recently got suspended from Substack, and not for a pretty reason.

According to them, I was apparently posting content with a lot of “promotional links” and that it was diverting users away from Substack.

Honestly, that sounds nothing but a bunch of baloney. My work demands sources to be put, even if it seems a bit excessive to maintain the integrity of my services.

The last piece that I wrote over there was a criticism about Mailfence, a Belgium-based email service.

I happen to be connected to one of the IT members in LinkedIn who works at Mailfence. Possible he did something, but I’ll let him have the benefit of the doubt, and not doubt him. I don’t have proof.

But it’s ridiculous how I have had to abandon Substack like this, just because their AI flagged my articles for apparent “spam”.

Their human counterparts weren’t generous either, and just took the word of the AI – which almost always have a 40-60% hallucination rate.

Oh, well. Off to a new start.

Keep you posted.

seems like substack has a nazi problem.

i’ve just finished reading an article from The Guardian which explicitly states that they let nazi publications run freely on their platform and do not deplatform or demonetize them.

i myself have been seeing multiple of these publications and pro-Nazi pieces pop up from time to time, and i found to even agree with some of these.

it seemed surprising to me, that they can see every single content that users publish on their platform – including the paid ones – and they still aren’t facing bans. the ceo themselves said that censorship rather worsens the problem at hand, and that’s true.

to be very honest, that’s a protection of free speech. and that’s nice. just because someone likes something or doesn’t, doesn’t mean they or others don’t get to speak about it however they want to. that’s ridiculous and itself against of democracy if someone isn’t allowed to speak their own mind.

i could come out here and whine about how they banned me but not literal Nazis, but i am not doing that. the reasons are different, and my presence became kind of a nuisance for their systems. as someone who monitors for malicious activity on networks for a living, sure, i get substack. my suspension doesn’t negate the fact that they indeed have some concrete priorities going forward. let’s see how long they stay the same.

you can check the article i read here.

– Kaifi.

got unbanned in substack.

what’s next?

first of all, it’s as if substack gave me this as the perfect valentine’s gift, since they emailed me at exactly 12 that they have unbanned my account.

second, happy valentine’s. i’ve deliberately decided to not do anything romantic or of the sort this time. i do not see the point in dating someone where i do not plan on getting married within the next year or so.

third, i will be cross-posting whatever i do in substack over here, and vice versa. both readers have the privilege of following me wherever they want to.

fourth, i’m planning to create a tool that collects all your email addresses (given you want to subscribe and voluntarily gave it to me under this post) and uses that to send you emails.

i currently am using buttondown, but i am looking at the prospects on how i could do that myself too. if i am able to, and if it is feasible, i will do it. one less third party actor to deal with, or risk YOUR data with, although they have a pretty nice mission that they are upholding.

be on the lookout.

– Kaifi.

getting banned in substack.

it’s not about playing safe this time. originally written Feb 19, 2026.

preface

first of all, a very happy ramadan, i’m fasting as i am writing this.

if you didn’t know it already, i got suspended in substack for well over two weeks.

worst part is, i didn’t even know what i did wrong.

the last piece i posted was about mailfence, an email service, who happened to have some very hypocritical practices alongside their pro-privacy stance.

“is this a defamation lawsuit of some kind? a move to stifle freedom of speech?”

all types of things came to mind, this being the strongest and most persistent thought.

plotline

thinking the ban was temporary, i was carefree, reading and trying to interact with other content on substack.

at least i could read! that’s what i thought i could. until proven wrong.

i couldn’t like, comment, heck, even save pieces to read later. it was like a view only account – i couldn’t do shit with it. and it felt suffocating.

i’ve been writing for over three months now. why would they ban me like this?

i reach out to the substack team, and they respond to me in about 2 days.

“your account has been suspended due to a repetitive posting of promotional content which redirects to sites other than substack”

if that were the case, i wouldn’t have earned approximately $0 for the past few months. that claim just felt off to me, and i promptly understood that they just took their AI detection system for granted. without any human intervention.

then i call them out explicitly asking for a human representative to instead take over the issue.

took another 3 days for them to do reply, and they listened.

flamingo

someone finally intervened and told me in detail what happened, and here are the specifics:

We’ve reviewed your account and the activity associated with it. Based on this review, we found patterns of bulk or unsolicited activity across community surfaces, such as repeatedly posting the same or substantially similar messages, links, or content across feeds, Notes, comments, DMs or chats within a short period of time.

Even when content is posted one at a time, repeatedly sharing identical or near-identical content across multiple surfaces is considered bulk or unsolicited behavior under our spam policies, and this violates our Content Guidelines.

i’ve been using a vpn at all times, and i am indeed guilty of reposting my stuff. and that didn’t sit right with their algorithm, and rightfully so. i understand that. their algorithm did the right thing accordingly, that’s fine. nothing serious. it just deterred me from posting this long.

clearly i did something that i didn’t think would cause much of a problem, which didn’t cause justice to my profile.

and here’s the lesson i got.

depending solely on one platform, isn’t going to cut it.

we’re living in a world where censorship is rampant, and authoritarianism is on the rise.

i’m not vilifying substack here because they suspended me. i’m talking about the whole content creation space in general. substack is rather more accommodative to all sorts of views and opinions — something a lot of platforms do not honor.

we’re so dependent on platforms that sometimes, we’re away from a ban with just one small mistake which you wouldn’t even realise you made until it’s too late.

i have been aware about this problem for multiple months now. but only after i have experienced this myself, i understand now.

this is not the first time i have been shunned. i have been shunned multiple times on other platforms just like this.

but evermoreso, i understand that free speech on the internet, is under crossfire. and none of us are safe.

this calls to diversifying the platforms where i’m at, with an added emphasis on autonomy. freedom. self-dependence. sovereignty. something more than a platform.

conclusion

i got unbanned from substack exactly on valentine’s. (<3)

it wasn’t a pleasant day for me, as i had been suffering from a fever during that time.

i’m glad i got unbanned, alhamdulillah, and my fever has subsided too, but my mind has shifted on how to approach content creation and dispersion as a whole.

this isn’t about playing safe from now on. the gameplan changes from here onwards.

i will be cross-posting my articles over two places: substack and wordpress.

if you want to check my substack blog out, it’s here.

substack apparently has a nazi problem, and i’ve recently got to know about it. i recursively wrote a small paragraph on it, and i suggest you go check it out here 🙂 (just above this essay, you’ve probably read it already since you’re here)

as for my ideas for this ramadan, and things that i am committing to:

i’m avoiding all social media consumption, on all platforms. i’ve deactivated and deleted some accounts too, including snapchat. it feels amazing. i’ll definitely write about it.
i’m also avoiding all sugar: fruit juices DO NOT count.
a complete ban on profanities. i do not like the fact that we have made it so casual to say the f word out loud, pretty much all the time.
this is a big one, but i am avoiding listening to music too. this is the hardest to adhere to — music is everywhere. but In Sha Allah, we’re getting through this together.

i’m super excited this ramadan, since i’ve been waiting for this for almost a whole year. may Allah bless this year for all of us.

this has been a small update from your one and only, @kaifisahil.

i’m excited as always to see where everything goes, and i’m optimistic that this turns into something amazing at the end.

for all is well, that ends well.

– K.

P.S. my brother has very recently joined substack. go show him some love. we’re both excited on his new journey!