this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2026
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards

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I made an admittedly editorialized post, but that is allowed. There is no rule against editorializing titles. The link was to this excellent story by Erin Reed:

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/iowa-dem-josh-turek-releases-anti

The story documents the efforts of Democrat-in-Name-Only Josh Turek to graft Republican anti-trans policies and bigotry into the Democratic party. The (supposed) automoderator flagged the post and removed it for being a "substack post." However, it was likely a manual removal as I would expect automoderator to work quickly, while this was up for hours.

The rule cited was:

"Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading."

This article clearly meets this requirement. Erin in the Morning is an entire journalistic operation with multiple employees. I'm sure they're incorporated in some form. Erin Reed is the most prominent trans rights journalist in the US, probably in the world. She's nationally famous, has won numerous national journalism awards, and has a Wikipedia page. She frequently appears on national media and speaks at events of all kinds. She is one of the most prominent transgender people in the United States.

But apparently if you're trans, to c/politics, regardless of what you accomplish, you can never be a real journalist, only a blogger. Real journalism is for cis people only.

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[–] TRAHR@quokk.au 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I’ve had a fair few issues with that comm. I was at least able to get them to allow journalist org substacks whereas previously it had been a flat ban on everything sub stack.

Erin in the Morning, being one of if not the most prominent trans journalist with all the breaking stories is simply not allowed and other organisations rarely cover what she does so so-much news is never heard.

I’ve mostly taken to sharing her articles on !politics@lemmy.dbzer0.com or !usa@quokk.au

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Edit 2: Regardless of Rule 2, YDI for the flagrant Rule 1 violation for titles.


I don't think this comm has an acronym for this, but:

  • Erin in the Morning advertises itself as the personal blog of Erin. At a glance, there's zero indication this isn't a Rule 2 violation.
  • ~~I saw this post just a few minutes before you posted this (and upvoted it? I forget). So the fact your post here is multiple paragraphs long tells me that as soon as it was pulled, you rushed here instead of trying to dispute it with the mods, immediately assuming transphobic bad faith was the reason your post (which at best toes the line of Rule 2) was removed.~~ Edit: I made a mistake here and confused this with the same article posted in another comm. Although it still doesn't seem like you tried to message the mods before this for clarification or to try and appeal, which is the main point – namely that you're assuming transphobic bad faith without at least trying to talk with them first given your post at best toes the line.

At worst, YDI because it's against a stated rule, and at best (assuming this is worked on by a broader editorial team), you're not giving them a chance to reconsider and instead assuming the absolute worst of them.


Edit: Scrolling back to the beginning of this year, I see two authors: "Erin Reed" and "S. Baum (They/Them)". I was able to find contributors before that, but it's pretty clear the Substack in the last year is just a couple of people writing without a broader editorial team or other entity behind them. And there's literally zero evidence EITM is incorporated; you just said surely it must be.

If I had to enforce Rule 2, I would've removed this for being a personal Substack blog – even though I don't agree with the rule. (And would instead predicate the rule on reliability.)

This isn't about "is this a good rule". I liked the article, found it informative, and wished it stayed up.


Edit 2: Also, OP, there definitely is a rule against what you did to the title:

If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive.

The original title is:

Iowa Dem Josh Turek Releases Anti-trans Ad Calling For A Federal Funding Ban On Trans Care

There's nothing ambiguous about this headline; nothing about it needs changing to "add context" or "be more descriptive" short of maybe clarifying that he's running for Senate.

Your title is:

Republican Josh Turek [this is false; Josh Turek is a member of the Democratic Party in the Iowa House of Representatives and was literally endorsed by Barack Obama], Successful Subverter of the Iowa Democratic Senate Primary [did I miss something? It literally just seems like Turek ran against Wahls normally and won], Continues Democratic Party's Degeneration Towards the Support for the Liquidation of Transgender Americans.

So you completely changed the original headline, increased its length by over 50%, and did so in order to fit in an outright lie and then editorialize to fuck and back. YDI for the Rule 1 violation alone.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

People shouldn't be blamed for breaking shitty, evil, arbitrary rules. That's just pathetic bootlicking... of of a lemmy comm/mod. jfc.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 days ago

Amazing they said nothing to the user pointing out how arbitrary the rule and then went to a different rule that was broken while still saying they should have discussed it with jordanlund before posting here

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/28832065

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

One of their campaign ads is look how much I vote with Republicans

https://turek4iowa.com/news/new-josh-turek-for-iowa-releases-new-ad-prove-it/

“In the Senate, Josh will work with anyone to clean up corruption and secure the border, including President Trump,” the narrator says in the ad. “And he’s got 700 votes to prove it.”

So they're running as what dems want to be and blue maga keep trying to say they aren't

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm aware of what a piece of shit Josh Turek is. Still false, and still doesn't make it not a violation of Rule 1 for failing to add any context or be more descriptive.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 days ago

Pointing out your claim of it being false title change is wrong because he is essentially a republican

[–] Aatube@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

the screenshot says "3 hours ago", so 3 hours must've past between removal and this post

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Oh, my bad. I must've seen it in another similar comm then. I'll edit my comment to reflect that. Good catch.

[–] kip@piefed.zip 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

not familiar enough to judge whether 'blogger' is unfair but in any case she does appear to be a slopmonger as detailed here: https://theneedlenews.com/2026/09/erin-reeds-ai-journalism-career/

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

[Reed's] litany of errors in 2026 includes deadnaming and misgendering a competing trans journalist who broke a story for one of her competitors! This was seven months ago, and the deadname is still up as of writing.

This wasn’t just any story. It was Nate Zuke’s first article that we can find. Many of you have already read it: ‘She’d Never Changed Her Gender Marker. Kansas Invalidated Her License Anyway.’

It was excellent reporting; arguably one of the most important trans news stories written by a trans journalist this year.

And it was Erin Reed who deadnamed him to her audience of hundreds of thousands.

It is unclear how Erin Reed would have found Nate Zuke’s deadname without AI. As of Sep. 2026, we could find no bylines under his deadname, either at the outlet he published this story in, or anywhere else. We found nothing in his public presence that would connect him to his deadname. We also found no public presence under his deadname whatsoever.

Archived versions of Assigned Media’s coverage from the day it went live, as well as posts by other journalists tagging Nate Zuke who broke the story, show that this story was never published under any name other than ‘Nate Zuke’.

We checked across the internet, and used three different search engines. The only documented proof of the existence of anyone with that name is from public court records in a different state from where he is known to live, and where we have no reason to believe he has ever lived in.

One explanation is that this name was somewhere in the AI training database, and that it (accurately or not) attributed that name to Nate Zuke.

Another explanation is that an LLM hallucinated his gender, and made up a woman's name for him. This is a documented problem with some LLMs, with this error even appearing from cis people's names.

Either way, Reed published a trans man's deadname, real or imagined.

That's... Holy shit, ew.


Edit: Just want to say that I've been continuing to read this article on and off, and sections 6.1 to 6.4 are 100% evidence of extensive LLM usage, literally just copy–pasting in huge chunks of text. Even though EITM has only come to my attention recently, I'm really disappointed.

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[–] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago

These comments are abysmal. The rule is no substacks unless it is part of a larger organization's story. You can disagree with the rule and talk about why it should be changed but applying a stated rule is not PTB.

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