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Glenn Greenwald is back on substack. Yay! For the past few years, he’s mostly done videos on rumble, and he’s fun to watch, but personally I prefer his writin

Glenn Greenwald is back on substack. Yay! For the past few years, he’s mostly done videos on rumble, and he’s fun to watch, but personally I prefer his writing. In case you’ve been under a rock for 10 years, Greenwald was the guy who published Snowden’s revelations. His focus has always been on censorship, surveillance, and hypocrisy in government.

jeffbee 8mo ago
"Yay" Greenwald is (still) playing footsie down at the Nazi bar. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-substack-makes-money-from-hosting-nazi-newsletters https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-s...
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  > Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters If we're gonna judge authors for what platforms they're using, does that mean we're all bad guys here on HN too, since a lot of current misery is because of startups and technology companies who used to receive a lot praise here?
  - zrail 8mo ago
    Yes.
    - nvr219 8mo ago
      Suffering from success.
  - lqstuart 8mo ago
    It's always fun reminding people that the internet was invented by the US military
    - embedding-shape 8mo ago
      So was the programming compiler, not sure what that's supposed to tell us. Programming languages are violent?
      - deleted 8mo ago
        [deleted]
    - Ylpertnodi 8mo ago
      [flagged]
    - kstrauser 8mo ago
      And Tor was a US Navy project. What’s your point?
  - Applejinx 8mo ago
    They couldn't possibly make all that money from just Nazis: I'm given to understand they're doing really well these days. I had the impression that Substack became heavily co-opted by anti-Nazis and have done nothing to defend the feelings of the Nazis they're also happy to host. Not sure what the balance is currently, but again: they couldn't possibly be making all that money from just Nazis, and I think that's instructive.
- alejohausner 8mo ago
  Rumble is indeed a free for all, with lots of angry kooks. But it’s also a place where reasonable dissenting voices have found a way to get their ideas heard. It’s a mixed bag.
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    As it should be. If it's not a mixed bag, you're in an echo-chamber. That's why I hang out here on HN with my fellow crazies who can separate ideas, thoughts and knowledge from the person.
    - SV_BubbleTime 8mo ago
      Well… let’s be fair… outside of tech specific posts, this place is Reddit/r/poltics maybe the lite version. This is an echo chamber on at least a dozen major topics.
    - stackghost 8mo ago
      HN is one massive echo chamber. Sorry to be the one to point it out to you. Why do you think HN has such a bad reputation for being smug corporate bootlickers? The elitism and groupthink here is fucking wild.
      - embedding-shape 8mo ago
        Every places have echos of echo-chambers, but some are worse than others. At least on HN you can choose to see stuff heavily downvoted, in many other places moderators just remove posts as they see fit. You'll get more different point of views here than on many other places, but I'd be happy to hear what places you consider less of an echo-chamber than HN.
        aydyn 8mo ago
        Wait a second, I instantly recognized your post as self-deprecating humor and not glazing and had a light chuckle. You mean that: >That's why I hang out here on HN with my fellow crazies who can separate ideas, thoughts and knowledge from the person. Is unironically what you think and posted in earnest? Thats WILD.
kspacewalk2 8mo ago
His focus has also involved generous amounts of simping for Russian fascists, excusing their colonialist wars, etc. Not an anti-imperialist, just anti-US.
- ambicapter 8mo ago
  link?
  - WillPostForFood 8mo ago
    https://voxukraine.org/en/messing-with-the-truth-disinformation-in-the-west-spread-by-glenn-greenwald https://voxukraine.org/en/messing-with-the-truth-disinformat...
    - epolanski 8mo ago
      Both the quotes of this, otherwise empty, article are reasonable and do not make him a Kremlin mouthpiece. Stating that the west, and the US, has actively used Ukraine as a puppet in the geopolitical game is a fact. It's also a fact that US troops and NATO forces have increasingly surrounded Russia since the 90s. Mind you, I think that the NATO argument is bogus. What happened in Ukraine was not a matter of Russian security, but Putin's own ambitions and paranoia against democratic waves in Belarus and Kazakhstan.
karp773 8mo ago
I personally miss Snowden's revelations so much. Such a brave soul! He should keep doing what he does best and never stop. It's sad that we have not heard any new revelations from him for a long time, though. Any ideas why he stopped?
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or something, but Snowden essentially lives in exile from his home as the US government would like to punish him for exposing the secrets of the US government spying on everyone. Not sure what new revelations could come from him.
  - karp773 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    - margalabargala 8mo ago
      Snowden is currently more or less trapped in Russia, and therefore unable to expose overreach of authoritarian governments without immediately fearing for his life. The US has lots of issues but at least it doesn't toss you out a window when you cross Fearless Leader. Maybe you get ICE'd, but Russia's kill rate of people Putin doesn't like is 1000x Trump.
      - ishouldstayaway 8mo ago
        > at least [the US] doesn't toss you out a window when you cross Fearless Leader. Well, not yet anyway: > Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-social-media.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-s...
stefan_ 8mo ago
You mean Snowden had to force his material on him, he reluctantly published it, got hooked on the fame and promptly jumped the shark
tootie 8mo ago
Is he taking a break from being a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda?
- user3939382 8mo ago
  Right if you’re not a mouthpiece for the US State Depts horrific foreign policy you’re a Russian propagandist. My family fought in every war going back to the Revolution and I think our policy on Russia is complete shit. AFAIC we started the whole conflict.
  - TiredOfLife 8mo ago
    He literally reposts russian lies.
  - wredcoll 8mo ago
    > AFAIC we started the whole conflict. Is this talking point still being paid for? I haven't seen it in a while, but I guess I don't keep track that closely. What are the other russian provided talking points these days?
    - rsync 8mo ago
      I would direct you to George Kennan[1] and his 1997 NYT article where he said, among other things: "... expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking ..." Is it your position that he was paid for, or in some way disingenuously held, this view ? I don't have strong opinions on this topic but I note with interest that there seem to be contrary viewpoints that aren't not puppets/trolls. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan
      - 8mo ago
acdha 8mo ago
He became well known for exposing surveillance but that instinct to portray himself as exposing government hypocrisy lead him to parrot Russian intelligence/Trump campaign attacks on Clinton and Biden long after he should have realized that the right posed a much greater threat to civil liberties and were feeding him information in service of their own campaigns, not transparency. It’s really undercut his earlier work.
- mmaunder 8mo ago
  Examining Glenn's work through an ideological lens leads to this kind of rhetoric. It's why he's so good at what he does. He's crossed ideological boundaries constantly in pursuit of the truth of a matter, and in defense of the public.
  - gbriel 8mo ago
    His ideology is “America bad”, which leads to some alignment with foreign influence and arguably leads to him spreading propaganda
    - slopinthebag 8mo ago
      If only his ideology was "Republican America bad, Democrat America good", then he would not be aligned with foreign influence and wouldn't be spreading propaganda.
      - weird_tentacles 8mo ago
        ^ This ... and note, it is sarcasm.
  - beepbooptheory 8mo ago
    To anyone on Twitter in like 2016-2019, this is a rather funny sentiment to have about him. I can remember my respect for him dissolve day by day. I didn't even remember until now if he was pro- or anti- Trump, probably neither still. But I simply remember that he slowly turned into the worst caricature of a smug Twitter media guy. Just turned into "hot take" haver and seemed to lose his own plot. If you know you know I guess, but even then, broken clocks and all that. There was a point where he was such a cool guy to me, and I grew up a little in a good way seeing him turn into whatever he did. It may just be Twitter's fault at the end of the day too!
mmaunder 8mo ago
Laura Poitras' documentary Citizenfour is an excellent introduction to the amazing work that Glenn does and has done, and how he's been personally targeted - although I don't recall whether the doc includes Glenn's partner being harassed by US authorities.
mancerayder 8mo ago
He's great for privacy, surveillance and a centrist liberal critique of both parties, but his obsession with Israel is annoying and distracting from the other non- partisan contrarian attitude that I like him for.
- Cyph0n 8mo ago
  Heh, “obsession”, as if Israel has been doing absolutely nothing of interest for the past two years. Not to mention its blatant involvement in the domestic US political scene via AIPAC and friends.

jeffbee 8mo ago

"Yay" Greenwald is (still) playing footsie down at the Nazi bar. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-substack-makes-money-from-hosting-nazi-newsletters https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-s...

embedding-shape 8mo ago
> Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters If we're gonna judge authors for what platforms they're using, does that mean we're all bad guys here on HN too, since a lot of current misery is because of startups and technology companies who used to receive a lot praise here?
- zrail 8mo ago
  Yes.
  - nvr219 8mo ago
    Suffering from success.
- lqstuart 8mo ago
  It's always fun reminding people that the internet was invented by the US military
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    So was the programming compiler, not sure what that's supposed to tell us. Programming languages are violent?
    - deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
  - Ylpertnodi 8mo ago
    [flagged]
  - kstrauser 8mo ago
    And Tor was a US Navy project. What’s your point?
- Applejinx 8mo ago
  They couldn't possibly make all that money from just Nazis: I'm given to understand they're doing really well these days. I had the impression that Substack became heavily co-opted by anti-Nazis and have done nothing to defend the feelings of the Nazis they're also happy to host. Not sure what the balance is currently, but again: they couldn't possibly be making all that money from just Nazis, and I think that's instructive.
alejohausner 8mo ago
Rumble is indeed a free for all, with lots of angry kooks. But it’s also a place where reasonable dissenting voices have found a way to get their ideas heard. It’s a mixed bag.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  As it should be. If it's not a mixed bag, you're in an echo-chamber. That's why I hang out here on HN with my fellow crazies who can separate ideas, thoughts and knowledge from the person.
  - SV_BubbleTime 8mo ago
    Well… let’s be fair… outside of tech specific posts, this place is Reddit/r/poltics maybe the lite version. This is an echo chamber on at least a dozen major topics.
  - stackghost 8mo ago
    HN is one massive echo chamber. Sorry to be the one to point it out to you. Why do you think HN has such a bad reputation for being smug corporate bootlickers? The elitism and groupthink here is fucking wild.
    - embedding-shape 8mo ago
      Every places have echos of echo-chambers, but some are worse than others. At least on HN you can choose to see stuff heavily downvoted, in many other places moderators just remove posts as they see fit. You'll get more different point of views here than on many other places, but I'd be happy to hear what places you consider less of an echo-chamber than HN.
      - aydyn 8mo ago
        Wait a second, I instantly recognized your post as self-deprecating humor and not glazing and had a light chuckle. You mean that: >That's why I hang out here on HN with my fellow crazies who can separate ideas, thoughts and knowledge from the person. Is unironically what you think and posted in earnest? Thats WILD.

kspacewalk2 8mo ago

His focus has also involved generous amounts of simping for Russian fascists, excusing their colonialist wars, etc. Not an anti-imperialist, just anti-US.

ambicapter 8mo ago
link?
- WillPostForFood 8mo ago
  https://voxukraine.org/en/messing-with-the-truth-disinformation-in-the-west-spread-by-glenn-greenwald https://voxukraine.org/en/messing-with-the-truth-disinformat...
  - epolanski 8mo ago
    Both the quotes of this, otherwise empty, article are reasonable and do not make him a Kremlin mouthpiece. Stating that the west, and the US, has actively used Ukraine as a puppet in the geopolitical game is a fact. It's also a fact that US troops and NATO forces have increasingly surrounded Russia since the 90s. Mind you, I think that the NATO argument is bogus. What happened in Ukraine was not a matter of Russian security, but Putin's own ambitions and paranoia against democratic waves in Belarus and Kazakhstan.

karp773 8mo ago

I personally miss Snowden's revelations so much. Such a brave soul! He should keep doing what he does best and never stop. It's sad that we have not heard any new revelations from him for a long time, though. Any ideas why he stopped?

embedding-shape 8mo ago
I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or something, but Snowden essentially lives in exile from his home as the US government would like to punish him for exposing the secrets of the US government spying on everyone. Not sure what new revelations could come from him.
- karp773 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - margalabargala 8mo ago
    Snowden is currently more or less trapped in Russia, and therefore unable to expose overreach of authoritarian governments without immediately fearing for his life. The US has lots of issues but at least it doesn't toss you out a window when you cross Fearless Leader. Maybe you get ICE'd, but Russia's kill rate of people Putin doesn't like is 1000x Trump.
    - ishouldstayaway 8mo ago
      > at least [the US] doesn't toss you out a window when you cross Fearless Leader. Well, not yet anyway: > Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-social-media.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-s...

stefan_ 8mo ago

You mean Snowden had to force his material on him, he reluctantly published it, got hooked on the fame and promptly jumped the shark

tootie 8mo ago

Is he taking a break from being a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda?

user3939382 8mo ago
Right if you’re not a mouthpiece for the US State Depts horrific foreign policy you’re a Russian propagandist. My family fought in every war going back to the Revolution and I think our policy on Russia is complete shit. AFAIC we started the whole conflict.
- TiredOfLife 8mo ago
  He literally reposts russian lies.
- wredcoll 8mo ago
  > AFAIC we started the whole conflict. Is this talking point still being paid for? I haven't seen it in a while, but I guess I don't keep track that closely. What are the other russian provided talking points these days?
  - rsync 8mo ago
    I would direct you to George Kennan[1] and his 1997 NYT article where he said, among other things: "... expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking ..." Is it your position that he was paid for, or in some way disingenuously held, this view ? I don't have strong opinions on this topic but I note with interest that there seem to be contrary viewpoints that aren't not puppets/trolls. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan
    - 8mo ago

acdha 8mo ago

He became well known for exposing surveillance but that instinct to portray himself as exposing government hypocrisy lead him to parrot Russian intelligence/Trump campaign attacks on Clinton and Biden long after he should have realized that the right posed a much greater threat to civil liberties and were feeding him information in service of their own campaigns, not transparency. It’s really undercut his earlier work.

mmaunder 8mo ago
Examining Glenn's work through an ideological lens leads to this kind of rhetoric. It's why he's so good at what he does. He's crossed ideological boundaries constantly in pursuit of the truth of a matter, and in defense of the public.
- gbriel 8mo ago
  His ideology is “America bad”, which leads to some alignment with foreign influence and arguably leads to him spreading propaganda
  - slopinthebag 8mo ago
    If only his ideology was "Republican America bad, Democrat America good", then he would not be aligned with foreign influence and wouldn't be spreading propaganda.
    - weird_tentacles 8mo ago
      ^ This ... and note, it is sarcasm.
- beepbooptheory 8mo ago
  To anyone on Twitter in like 2016-2019, this is a rather funny sentiment to have about him. I can remember my respect for him dissolve day by day. I didn't even remember until now if he was pro- or anti- Trump, probably neither still. But I simply remember that he slowly turned into the worst caricature of a smug Twitter media guy. Just turned into "hot take" haver and seemed to lose his own plot. If you know you know I guess, but even then, broken clocks and all that. There was a point where he was such a cool guy to me, and I grew up a little in a good way seeing him turn into whatever he did. It may just be Twitter's fault at the end of the day too!

mmaunder 8mo ago

Laura Poitras' documentary Citizenfour is an excellent introduction to the amazing work that Glenn does and has done, and how he's been personally targeted - although I don't recall whether the doc includes Glenn's partner being harassed by US authorities.

mancerayder 8mo ago

He's great for privacy, surveillance and a centrist liberal critique of both parties, but his obsession with Israel is annoying and distracting from the other non- partisan contrarian attitude that I like him for.

Cyph0n 8mo ago
Heh, “obsession”, as if Israel has been doing absolutely nothing of interest for the past two years. Not to mention its blatant involvement in the domestic US political scene via AIPAC and friends.