I recommend avoiding the following domains because they are not real websites, but social media accounts hidden behind custom domains. I'm sharing these domains so that people who don't want to support bad platforms can avoid being duped.
My selection criteria are simple. If I click a link and end up on Medium or Substack, the domain gets listed below so that I know to avoid it in the future.
Hosted on Medium
- betterprogramming.pub
- danny.fyi
Hosted on Substack
- goto10retro.com
- maximum-progress.com
- newcartographies.com
- betonit.ai
- personalcanon.com
- aporiamagazine.com
- richardhanania.com
- thefp.com
- ymeskhout.com
- persuasion.community
- cremieux.xyz
- economicforces.xyz
- afterbabel.com
- news.immunologic.org
- hyperdimensional.co
- tanayj.com
- shivangsnewsletter.com
- thoughts.wyounas.com
- woman-of-letters.com
- honest-broker.com
- rickmanelius.com
- theintrinsicperspective.com
- clunyjournal.com
- zine.kleinkleinklein.com
- thebignewsletter.com
- commonreader.co.uk
- notboring.co
- infinitescroll.us
- usermag.co
- avabear.xyz
- ggd.world
- conspicuouscognition.com
Blocking these Domains
If you have access to your computer's hosts file, you can add the following to block all DNS queries to the domains listed above.
# BEGIN: domains hosted on Medium 0.0.0.0 betterprogramming.pub 0.0.0.0 danny.fyi # END: domains hosted on Medium # BEGIN: domains hosted on Substack 0.0.0.0 goto10retro.com 0.0.0.0 maximum-progress.com 0.0.0.0 newcartographies.com 0.0.0.0 betonit.ai 0.0.0.0 personalcanon.com 0.0.0.0 aporiamagazine.com 0.0.0.0 richardhanania.com 0.0.0.0 thefp.com 0.0.0.0 ymeskhout.com 0.0.0.0 persuasion.community 0.0.0.0 cremieux.xyz 0.0.0.0 economicforces.xyz 0.0.0.0 afterbabel.com 0.0.0.0 news.immunologic.org 0.0.0.0 hyperdimensional.co 0.0.0.0 tanayj.com 0.0.0.0 shivangsnewsletter.com 0.0.0.0 thoughts.wyounas.com 0.0.0.0 woman-of-letters.com 0.0.0.0 honest-broker.com 0.0.0.0 rickmanelius.com 0.0.0.0 theintrinsicperspective.com 0.0.0.0 clunyjournal.com 0.0.0.0 zine.kleinkleinklein.com 0.0.0.0 thebignewsletter.com 0.0.0.0 commonreader.co.uk 0.0.0.0 notboring.co 0.0.0.0 infinitescroll.us 0.0.0.0 usermag.co 0.0.0.0 avabear.xyz 0.0.0.0 ggd.world 0.0.0.0 conspicuouscognition.com # END: domains hosted on Substack
For your convenience, this list is also downloadable so that you can add it to your hosts file or use it with Pi-hole.
FAQ
- "How do you know a domain is hosted on Medium or Substack"
- I use
curlto retrieve a URL in a terminal, and pipe the output intogrep -e "medium.com/m/global-identity-2?redirectUrl" -e "substackcdn.com" | less. Then I scroll through the output.- Both platforms refer to themselves in a page's HTML. Medium puts a "sign in" button on every publication they host, even if said publication uses a custom domain, and that button sends you to
medium.com/m/global-identity-2with aredirectUrlargument to return you to the page you had wanted to read. Substack has numerous links to CSS and JavaScript files hosted onsubstackcdn.com. Either is a dead giveaway that a domain is tainted by association with these platforms. - Both platforms refer to themselves in a page's HTML. Medium puts a "sign in" button on every publication they host, even if said publication uses a custom domain, and that button sends you to
- "What's your beef with Medium?"
- Medium is Spotify for writers; a few make bank, and the rest make bupkis. Funded by venture capital, it has already been enshittified, and even in its early years the content was neither rare nor well-done.
- "What's your beef with Substack?"
- Substack is Medium for newsletters, a venture-funded social media platform that doesn't want to be seen as such. Worse, Substack is also a Nazi bar that hosts white supremacist publications like Aporia, scientific racists like Richard Hanania, and people who really should know better than to play the sycophant for rich right-wing authoritarians like Bari Weiss.
- Not all of the domains listed below are right-wing publications or operated by right-wingers. They may not even have gotten the memo that Substack is still a Nazi bar. Nevertheless, they're still lending legitimacy to an exploitative platform that would still be so even if it purged its Nazis.
- "Why not link to these sites?"
- Why should I? They might not necessarily be bad sites, but they're hosted on platforms that exploit writers or are tolerant of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. I am not obligated to support such platforms with so much as a single link in their direction.
- "I want my domain removed from this list."
- Move your website off of Medium/Substack, and I'll consider it, unless you're publishing alt-reich propaganda or scientific racism. This means you, Bari Weiss and Richard Hanania. I see you assholes.