Top all-time · #260
Matt Taibbi
Personal blog · taibbi.substack.compoliticswriting
Matt Taibbi writes Racket News, a personal blog at taibbi.substack.com about politics and writing. Since 2018, 181 different Hacker News readers have linked it 293 times, most often “Much easier to ruin a career than mess with a corporate cash cow”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Matt Taibbi's Substack for critiques of media, censorship, and big tech, and for his Russiagate and fact-checking coverage. Commenters often cite it as support for their own points on those topics.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- One commenter calls his Russiagate piece a factual, point-by-point account. Another calls his take on the NYT editorial great and says a related article is wort
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Regular news and features by award-winning author and investigative reporter, Matt Taibbi. Click to read Racket News, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
Most-linked posts?
- Much easier to ruin a career than mess with a corporate cash cow10 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2021-05-14
- The American Press Is Destroying Itself10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2020-06-13
- Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media8 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2019-03-23
- Thirty Years After Manufacturing Consent, How Mass Media Keeps Thought Inbounds7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2018-11-03
- /p/aaugh-a-brief-list-of-official-russia7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2021-06-03
- The Censored: Bret Weinstein5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-06-19
- NPR Trashes Free Speech. A Brief Response5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-08-31
- On “White Fragility”5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-06-28
- /3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-04-22
- In Defense of Substack3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-03-01
What Hacker News says?
The bigger problem is left-leaning people getting harassed and immediately flagged as right/alt-right/-ist (i.e., "not one of us") when merely disagreeing with or challenging dogma. See Joe Rogan, JK Rowling, Sam Harris, Bret Weinstein, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker for some high profile examples. Don't toe the line and echo approved orthodoxy? You're the enemy! This is extreme tribal behavior. As a result, there i…
Comment linking /p/the-left-is-now-the-right/comments
on “Social Cooling (2017)”Submitted The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire as a story · 531 points
HN discussionMatt Taibbi https://taibbi.substack.com/
Comment linking /
on “I Am Deleting the Blog”Submitted The American Press Is Destroying Itself as a story · 489 points
HN discussionAwesome! Another reader of Taibbi's. By the way, the Post Gazette seems to have stolen that article, so maybe don't drive business their way. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1274747185507246081?s=20 Instead, here is Taibbi's substack. If you're off a mind, a subscription is only $40 per year, but the stolen article is nevertheless free. https://taibbi.substack.com/
Comment linking /
on “I Am Deleting the Blog”Submitted Suppression is a bigger scandal than the actual story as a story · 471 points
HN discussionThat's Matt Taiabbis proposition too. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-i...
Comment linking /p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself
on “I Am Deleting the Blog”Submitted We need a new media system as a story · 305 points
HN discussion>For the same reason that the NY Times suddenly publishing a front-page article on the 26 women who have accused Trump of rape [1] the week before the election would be a blatant partisan hack move. What are you talking about??! That story was reported EVERYWHERE. If it was 'old news' why was it reported EVERYWHERE? The fact that it didn't change the election outcome (which is what you're really complaining about) i…
Comment linking /p/with-the-hunter-biden-expose-suppression
on “My Resignation from the Intercept”Submitted Suck It, Wall Street as a story · 268 points
HN discussionMatt Taibbi: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/glenn-greenwald-on-his-resigna...
Comment linking /p/glenn-greenwald-on-his-resignation
on “My Resignation from the Intercept”Submitted Silicon Valley is shutting down speech loopholes. Latest target: live content as a story · 206 points
HN discussionI think you're very wrong. I'm the opposite of a Republican, and I think this scandal (the media's and Twitter's behavior, not the emails) is big. Matt Taibbi, a very definitely not-Republican journalist, agrees: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/with-the-hunter-biden-expose-s... I think the main reason it's not a big controversy elsewhere is due to exactly what you mention - both bubbles absolutely reject anything nega…
Comment linking /p/with-the-hunter-biden-expose-suppression-136
on “My Resignation from the Intercept”Submitted Russiagate is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media as a story · 202 points
HN discussionThe whole private sector censorship reminds me of a very good piece by Matt Taibbi: > "People in the U.S. seem able to recognize that China’s censorship of the internet is bad. They say: “It’s so authoritarian, tyrannical, terrible, a human rights violation.” Everyone sees that, but then when it happens to us, here, we say, “Oh, but it’s a private company doing it.” What people don’t realize is the majority of censo…
Comment linking /p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea
on “YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content”Submitted A Worsening Culture War as a story · 182 points
HN discussionThe government is actively telling social media companies which posts need to be taken down. That makes them state actors. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-administration... Here is a partial list of scientific consensus "deniers" proven right which this sort of censorship will either silence by big tech or due to self-censorship: 1. Ignaz Sem…
Comment linking /p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea
on “Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content””Submitted Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship? as a story · 166 points
HN discussionThe government is actively telling social media companies which posts need to be taken down. That makes them state actors. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-administration...
Comment linking /p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea
on “Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content””Submitted Pandemic Villains: Robinhood as a story · 141 points
HN discussion"People in the U.S. seem able to recognize that China’s censorship of the internet is bad. They say: “It’s so authoritarian, tyrannical, terrible, a human rights violation.” Everyone sees that, but then when it happens to us, here, we say, “Oh, but it’s a private company doing it. Google is entitled to do what it wants.” What people don’t realize is the majority of censorship in China is being carried out by private…
Comment linking /p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea
on “Google Drive bans distribution of “misleading content””Submitted The Sovietization of the American Press as a story · 130 points
HN discussion>You are completely ignoring the high level of coordination that has been proven, between the Trump campaign and the Russians. No high level of co-ordination to steal the election was "proven". I don't know what kind of "news" you read. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-mill... >It's impossible to know what the effect was, but we know for sure they tried, which is illegal. If you don't know wha…
Comment linking /p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million
on “YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud”Submitted The Inevitable Coronavirus Censorship Crisis as a story · 127 points
HN discussionThe fact that you think his post is violent and want to tattle to the moderator is all I need to be afraid of censorship. Every bit of his comment is a valid concern and Matt Taibbi had a similar and sadly predictive post about this a few weeks ago on this subject [1]. [1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-youtube-ban-is-un-american...
Comment linking /p/the-youtube-ban-is-un-american-wrong
on “Amazon, Apple and Google Cut Off Parler”Submitted On “White Fragility” as a story · 123 points
HN discussionhttps://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-trump-the-capitol-and-the-d...
Comment linking /p/on-trump-the-capitol-and-the-division
on “Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump”Submitted If It’s Not “Cancel Culture,” What Kind of Culture Is It? as a story · 118 points
HN discussionHere is a further article on the event: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/twitter-and-facebooks... > By the afternoon, Twitter had joined Facebook in suppressing the article, not only barring its users from sharing it with followers, but barring them sharing it through direct messages as well. It locked the accounts of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, the Post, and many others for retweeting the st…
Comment linking /p/the-bombshell-memory-hole-d20
on “Facebook, Twitter block the NY Post from posting”Submitted The American Press Is Destroying Itself as a story · 87 points
HN discussion
