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Year of troubles, season of hatchetmen.
As of several weeks back, Substack has been under a massive seemingly coordinated attack from subversive forces seeking to create a viral exodus from the site by reputationally damaging it. Unfortunately, it seems the program is of such wide scope as to even target individual high volume accounts, of which I appear to be one—as I too have now come under the hatchetmen’s blade of deplatformization.
First, a brief background:
Substack, as most people know, is a fairly young business. Though the company opened doors in 2017, it didn’t really begin gaining widespread appeal until around 2020, when a host of dissident voices found it to be the only non-censorial pulpit from which to shout the truth surrounding the unprecedented fraud of the 2020 election:
I remember myself first hearing of it somewhere around that time, from the likes of big-reach Twitter influencers like Mike Cernovich and his conservative milieu. After that, and the subsequent Covid “pandemic”, Substack naturally took its place as an oasis from the censorship and deplatformization found virtually everywhere else, rising to new heights in the process.
As soon as that happened, Substack predictably became a target for all the most infamous imperial watchmen organizations who seek to gatekeep the truth via their corporate brand of ‘fact-checking’ and censorship. It culminated in a high-visibility attack from the ADL itself early last year:
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You can read their entire hitpiece here.
Once the ADL blew the war shofar it was game on, as this was treated as marching orders to all the most reprehensible organizations and fake news outlets to begin mustering to formation.
This culminated in what was the most high-profile hitpiece of all, last month’s Atlantic feature:
The piece’s job was precisely to browbeat Substack into “addressing” the issue, for which an entire offensive response package was being developed. Naturally, Substack was forced to respond, holding the line against censorship, which initiated Phase 2.0 of the operation:
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These articles generated a firestorm of anti-Substack agitation designed to be the leading edge of the coordinated attack and planned migration wave that would soon follow. Using the article as circular “evidence”, a critical mass of high-profile leftist Substackers immediately leapt to the podium to announce their withdrawals from the platform, hypocritically accusing Substack of transgressions which are found in even greater quantities at all the other corporate-orthodoxy toeing platforms they purported to be leaving for.
The dizzying scale of the attack made it appear orchestrated. Here’s just a few of the high profile bandwagon exiles:
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The above, with 40,000 subscribers, even lists Jonathan M. Katz’ blog on its ‘recommendations’—Katz is the author of the original Atlantic hitpiece: “Substack Has a Nazi Problem.”
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Maybe the largest self-exile is Casey Newton’s Platformer—with nearly 200,000 subscribers:
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This was followed by Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day, with nearly 70,000 subscribers:
It’s very clear to see why this is happening now, of all times. Just as Substack may have owed its initial popularity to the trench-war surrounding the 2020 election, J6, and Covid, Substack likewise stands to be at the center of what is certainly going to be an unprecedented, controversial, and dangerous historical firestorm later this year, and early next.
Think that’s silly? A middling platform by the standards of market capitalization and total users can’t possibly be such a ‘dangerous’ bugbear to the elites, can it? Yet those who’ve been following will know that some of the empire’s most dangerous dissident voices reside exclusively on Substack. Does Matt Taibbi, Alex Berenson, and many others ring a bell? Some of these Substack writers have been central to the most momentous political scandals and revelatory bombshells of recent times. Hell, Taibbi even paid for it with a retaliatory federal case against him:
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That’s right: Substack gives succor to dissidents viewed as grave dangers to the establishment, and they cannot allow Substack to remain unfettered going into the critical end of 2024 cycle.
That is why the attack had to come now, to begin seeding the groundwork to try and discredit and eventually dismantle one of the last remaining free speech bastions on the internet. And they’re doing that with the same ol’ tired shtick, claiming some tiny obscure holdout of “Nazis” is not only denning on the site, but are forcing their way into people’s recommends.
This quite obviously stinks of the same type of contortion Media Matters was accused of just last month, wherein they were said to game the system by refreshing ads hundreds of times until landing on the chance ‘desired result’, which then served as smear-piece fodder about ‘dangerously’ unwanted ads appearing unbidden next to their content.
The largest of the self-exiled, Casey Newton, wrote up what sounds like a semi-reasonable explanation, though he admits the Atlantic hitpiece was the initial spur which led to his re-evaluation of Substack. He further admits it only really revolved around six main offending newsletters, though “[his] analysis” found “dozens” more—which advocated the ghastly and unbearable “replacement theory”:
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Really? The replacement theory Biden himself admitted on video to not only being true, but a “good thing”, is akin to “hate speech”? This is the “Nazi stuff” we’re talking about here?
Most troublingly, the rat openly admitted to going straight to Stripe itself to squeal on Substack—what appears an obvious attempt to get Substack shut down at the merchant bank level:
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“In the spirit of journalistic inquiry”—how innocent it all sounds!
But keep this point in mind for later.
The most egregious part about all of this is the sheer hypocrisy inherent to the performatively whiny and fragile leftist charade. Casey Newton further admits that the other platforms of choice to which he’s banishing himself will likely suffer from the same problems. But he claims there are a few ‘key differences’—one of them being that—according to him—they won’t throw that content in your face, or make it appear next to his business:
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This seems to imply that he would be okay with the content existing on the same platform, just not being shone next to his material. But he does not provide any proof that has ever happened on Substack either, only some vague longueur about how Substack’s recommendations infrastructure could theoretically allow it. In fact, he admits he had to really dig and root around just to find seven measly publications of the alleged ‘Nazi’ persuasion. It appears like a desperate reach to find any incriminating ort to justify an already predetermined decision. He himself rightly expressed a self-conscious fear it would be taken this way:
The point of this leak, I believe, was to make the entire discussion about hate speech on Nazis on Substack appear to be laughably small: a mountain made out of a molehill by bedwetting liberals.
Well, considering the ‘Nazi’ blanket appears to cover anyone disagreeing with illegal immigration, couched as ‘replacement theory’, then I’d say mountain out of molehill might not be an entirely undue of an assessment.
The next guy, Ryan Broderick, is the writer once famously fired from Buzzfeed for what was reported to be long-spanning plagiarism. His main claim to fame was—you guessed it: getting ZeroHedge perma-banned on Twitter after tattle-telling on them for supposedly “doxing” a Chinese scientist in a Covid origins report. You see a pattern here? These pearl-clutching male Karens appear enamored with calling the principal on anyone they disagree with ideologically.
Demonstrating a deficit of self-awareness, Ryan Broderick’s own past posting history exhibited extremely disturbing patterns that clash with no little irony against his performative ‘moral outrage’ at Substack hosting ‘disagreeables’. In his goodbye piece he likewise cites the Atlantic smearjob and its subsequent fallout as the turning point, and mealymouths about some phantom ‘Nazis’. Because this guy is the moral compass of the world, right?
He likewise cites the Ghost platform and admits it has no moderation, even compared to Substack:
None of this had to happen. Ghost, a Substack competitor, has almost no real moderation to speak of, but no one seems to care. You know why? Because it’s not trying to jam all of its users into one feed to compete with Twitter or whatever. Substack, meanwhile, has insisted on adding more social features over the last three years, instead of making their email product better. Which is still missing tons of pretty basic features.
A bit hypocritical, don’t you think? Granted, he doesn’t make it clear whether he is definitively switching to Ghost, rather than some other platform. But the fact he speaks highly of it in comparison while admitting it has even less moderation is just rich. Not a single one of these people has yet to produce a verifiable example of Nazi propaganda being forced onto them or their recommends—or whatever it is they’re even claiming the issue to be; it’s a problem in itself that they aren’t even able to convincingly articulate the issue, instead maundering around in vague generalizations which are clearly just blind gropes for a justification to a decision they had already made.
A few good Substack writers have thrown their hats in the ring in defense of Substack. Chief amongst them was Freddy deBoer who levied similar criticisms at the vapidity of this exodus campaign:
Freddie deBoerFreddie too gets to the heart of the problem in exposing how these exile divas have completely failed in explaining away the hypocrisy of their warped logic, when the new platform they have chosen is no better, or at least is apt to suffer from the same issues.
And I have to be the one to point out that none of them, not Katz or Stern or Broderick or Newton or any of the many people who have contributed to this grubby little genre, have ever been able to articulate the core moral superiority of their future platforms that house far-right extremists compared to that of the one they’re so proud to leave.
Despite being a tad long-winded, Freddie’s piece is worth reading as it brings up a lot of other good ancillary points. The most important one being the disingenuous moral relativism and inconsistency at the heart of their hypocritical arguments.
Freddie links to another good rebuttal and refutation in support of Substack; this piece by Jesse Singal:
In debunking the Atlantic hitpiece, Jesse finds the evidence “almost entirely fabricated”:
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Singal also provides this interaction with the author of the Atlantic piece, which I think lucidly demonstrates the type of people we’re dealing with here, which are trying so ardently to deplatform Substack:
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If you want an actual point by point breakdown of Atlantic’s accusations and their refutations, read Jesse’s piece above, which is actually a sequel to this piece:
Another good defense was made by Ben Dreyfuss:
Calm DownLastly, this rebuttal of Atlantic seemed to resonate with readers most, with a whopping ~2,000 likes:
The ElysianElle Griffin delivers the goods here:
There can be no doubt that there is a lot of hateful content on the internet. But Substack has come up with the best solution yet: Giving writers and readers the freedom of speech without surfacing that speech to the masses. In your Substack Inbox, you only receive the newsletters you subscribe to. Whether you’re a reader or a writer, it is unlikely you’ll receive hateful content at all if you don’t follow it. (I never have—though I saw it all the time on Twitter and Facebook despite never having followed an account in that vein.)
Not only do I agree, but I’ve noticed that Casey Newton has 54 publications he subscribes to on Substack, while Broderick has a mere ~30. I subscribe to and read almost 100, and yet through that algorithmic soup, I have yet to encounter any sort of ‘Nazi’ or offensive material even once by way of “suggestion” or “recommend” of any kind.
This is why the campaign appears suspiciously to be nothing more than the coordinated take-down attempt of Substack, during the critical year when the platform and its protected class of endangered authors stand to do the most damage to the deepstate strangulating America.
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In truth, normally I find any sort of polemics of this kind uncouth and in bad taste. I usually don’t feel comfortable directly attacking or addressing people, even if it’s ‘punching up’ at those much more influential than me, simply because I like to abide by ‘do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.’ So it’s with no great pleasure that I’m even writing this and pointing fingers.
But exigent developments left me with no choice, because it has now directly affected me, my business, and livelihood.
As of about a week and a half ago, I was suddenly notified by Stripe, the merchant and payment processor for Substack, that my account was being placed “in review” and was scheduled for ‘suspension’—or what appeared to be termination—lest I provide some details. Nothing of the sort has ever happened to my account before. Upon research, I found that Stripe itself has deplatformed several high profile figures—but they were usually really high profile ones, like Laura Loomer.
This was an attack straight to the root—bypassing Substack itself and going directly to the payment process, which would effectively deplatform me from everything, as Stripe has ‘conveniently’ risen to be the exclusive merchant for many or most top platforms, including BuyMeaCoffee and Twitter/X. To be deplatformed from Stripe would be the instant nullification of all those other accounts, as they do not offer any alternatives besides Stripe. I assume this is the case because Stripe forces them into an exclusivity deal, to edge out competitors, as is so often the case with these tech monopolies.
You recall I said to take note of Casey Newton’s point earlier?
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Interestingly, his submission must have happened somewhere around late December to early January. My initial Stripe ultimatum came on about January 5th. Now, I’m not necessarily implying there is a direct correlation, particularly given the fact that he later states “Stripe did not reply to him”. But, not only would I not generally trust his characterization of his exchange with Stripe, it also doesn’t necessarily mean they did not get spooked by a massively popular platform owner with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, potentially causing them to do an emergency “system flush” of any ‘undesirables’. After all, it seems far too ‘coincidental’ that such an unprecedented threat of account shutdown hit me only days after the above.
After receiving Stripe’s letter, I launched into some research to ascertain how common this was. Apart from Laura Loomer, who was reportedly deplatformed from everything, including Stripe, Paypal, Venmo, Cashapp, etc., the only comparable Substacker I could find was the following:
Sage’s NewsletterHowever, her article is mostly paywalled, and she appears to still be writing prolifically on Substack two years later, which would seem to suggest she may have been replatformed on Stripe. I’m not familiar with her or her work, so if any of you happen to be readers and know if she resolved the issue, let us know in the comments. It’s possible that she simply continued writing on Substack for ‘free’, without the ability for having paid subscribers, and in turn accepts payment from other outside apps/sources.
A cursory internet search finds other non-Substack related sites/authors deplatformed by Stripe, which apparently includes Bitchute. In each case that I could find, the sensitive taboo which got them nixed revolves around ADL-related material, as you can imagine.
One last deplatformed Substacker I found was a self-described ‘witch’ or ‘metaphysical’ practitioner who was deplatformed by Stripe on account of them not being very supportive of ‘occult work’.
Getting back to my own plight: I was immediately made wary of the nature of the attack on me when Stripe’s requests became increasingly erratic and inconsistent. There were at least four sets of follow-up requests, each contradicting or having no relation to the previous.
I immediately suspected: I was being railroaded.
Without going into all the details: the first request made some vague mention about my violating some kind of restricted business sales. They shunted me into a questionnaire page, where I was made to fill out questions to “provide information on what you’re selling”, including suggestions that I am “shipping products” somewhere.
This perplexed me: I obviously don’t “sell” or ship anything, and replied quite vociferously that I am a Substack author—a fact which you can clearly see on your end of the portal since it is directly connected to Stripe. The entire time my account was “in review”, it was scheduled for shutdown with an ominous warning that at said date, all payment processing would cease.
A couple days later, I received a new request for more information. This time they changed their story entirely from my having sold potentially illicit products, or whatever, to some convoluted accusation about taking payments from ‘restricted industries’. I angrily told them I don’t take payments from any “industries”—I run a Substack for god’s sake.
Two or so more times we went back and forth in this robotic way, with no attempt at clarification from their end, until we got to this:
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What?! Substack is one of your own largest business partners! You need to determine if it is supportable? None of this made sense, and I got the impression these were AI generated queries. I managed to get hold of a “live agent”—or one claiming to be—yet their responses were no less robotic, offering no clarification whatsoever. Here’s how some of that interaction went as I grew irate:
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Several days later, the plot thickened even more when I learned I was in fact undergoing a mass coordinated attack:
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That’s right, the criminal NAFO organization targeted me for a harassment and mass-reporting campaign. I sent these materials to all pertinent services to notify them that I am in fact under a targeted attack aimed at deplatforming me.
For those not in the know, “bonking” means to report someone with a pre-written spiel, making up accusations against the target to get them flagged and banned. The problem is, this particular screenshot above was several days to a week after the Stripe fiasco. It’s possible a silent campaign had already begun against me prior to this, or the Stripe issue had more to do with the previous coordinated attack on Substack itself—or some mazy combination of all of the above. The timing—while it doesn’t line up perfectly—is far too ‘coincidental’ to be mere accident.
But to back track slightly—the fact that Stripe sent me that last note in the earlier screenshot, which said they need to “review my site”, left me…how shall I say, discretely disturbed. First they claimed I was selling illicit products, then that I was violating some restricted industries clause, now suddenly they had switched to “well, let us review your site”.
If I were “taking payments” from some “restricted business”, you wouldn’t be able to see that on my public front-facing site. So why would they need to “review my site”? This smacked to me of content approval. The only other possible explanation I can think of, is that perhaps the targeted campaign against me hit Stripe with so many random false accusations, they were covering their bases for all the different claims.
Days later Stripe closed the review with no positive or encouraging word whatsoever, just leaving me to ‘assume’ the issue had been resolved. A week after sending an emergency ‘trust and safety’ mail to alert them to my mass-report harassment attack, I received Stripe’s response, which was no less shocking than all the previously distasteful interactions:
I kid you not: instead of reassuring me, that they’ve got my back or are taking care of any potential attacks on my account, they tried to ‘upsell’ me on some new product/service which could alert me of such attacks—and which I would have to pay for.
Palm meet face.
On top of that, the robotic ‘agent’ addressed me by the name of the previous Stripe agent which had responded to me in the email chain. Yes, he literally didn’t even read the mail correctly and was in effect responding to his own team member. The unprofessionalism was unbelievable.
This is the main reason I’m writing this piece: because there are so many other writers on here I respect for whom I want to leave this as public testament and instructive warning to know what we are dealing with. These ‘systems’ take us for granted and couldn’t care less about our [compulsory] ‘patronage’. In reality, Stripe makes money from us, not the other way around—yet they treated me like I was the unclean vagrant begging for table scraps. If only we had a choice, I would have long made the switch, but apparently Substack is locked into an exclusivity deal in the same way all the tech monopolies today force everyone into their digital ‘walled gardens’.
Substack: if you’re listening, please consider alternative payment merchant options. I predict with this coming historical year, things will come to a head on this account. This may be just the beginning of a mass suppression campaign.
For the record, Substack was the only service to even respond semi-reassuringly to my urgent alert about a mass attack on my accounts. They at least offered a customer-forward and friendly reassurance that the matter had been escalated to appropriate channels, who would be watching for future attacks.
Twitter on the other hand found “no violations” with the mass open-call to attack me:
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Well, that’s certainly good to know. Not that I really care. Twitter is the only place I couldn’t care less if I got “deplatformed” from.
For the record, I didn’t even “report” the attack as a violation—I simply emailed Twitter support to watch for mass reports against me, so that I’m not banned for the false reports of others.
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As stated, I just wanted this to be an edifying public record for other Substackers. If I’m deplatformed in the near future, I refuse to go quietly into the night and will continue to expose all the details of what transpired so that others can take heed and learn to better navigate this truth-hostile environment.
That being said, it does appear resolved for now—but it does not exactly bode well, or give me great confidence for the future. It’s a very real reminder that the plug can be pulled at any time and that we’re all ‘on the clock’ here.
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This brings me to explain the point I made in the last article, which was my first ever paywalled one. I said I would reveal why the sudden need for paywalls. My reasoning is threefold, not in particular order:
1. First, given that it feels like my operation here is ‘on the clock’, I can no longer slow-roll this account’s growth simply for the sake of being ‘nice’. Unfortunately, desperate times call for desperate measures, and so it’s “no more Mr. Niceguy”. I’m forced to secure my future as quickly as possible, being ‘under the hammer’ that could drop at any moment.
In practice, this means I need to maximize my growth as quickly as possible to create a security nest egg for a potential ‘rainy day’ of being deplatformed, which would allow me to subsist without pay while exploring alternative solutions or new platforms to switch to. Given these attacks, I simply don’t have the luxury of slow growth for the time being. That said, if things improve in the future, I’ll probably go back to normal because I myself have always hated paywalls when reading other authors and would prefer wider free readership over a small paid niche following.
2. I mentioned that it was also about restricting content that was too ‘sensitive’. This means any topic that may attract the mass-reporters like flies and be a lightning rod for “accusations” will serve better being put behind a paywall. This limits bad actors accessing it in order to use it against me in some way.
3. Thirdly, and possibly most importantly of all: the way that Stripe appeared intent on ‘reviewing’ the content of my actual writing left me deeply disturbed. It made me think that the previous infractions were just cover for the real operation: to monitor my actual content for “WrongThink” or heterodoxy.
This is akin to having a bank representative from JP Morgan sitting over your shoulder, watching you surf the internet all day to monitor your habits and make sure you remain a “good fit” for their ‘safety standards’ without any of those “problematic” proclivities.
This simple fact alone made me decide to paywall some of the content that will be more in the OpEd or ‘editorial’ style, as it is only there I can be accused of some kind of ‘problematic bias’ compared to regular SitRep style reports, which are fairly impartial and without an ostensibly ‘ideological’ (and heterodox) slant.
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When the attack first hit, I began researching for potential alternative platforms like Ghost. But then I realized that’s precisely where the choreographed exodus was gravitating to, which made me wary and skeptical of it.
I also realized that if Stripe were to deplatform me, that would have no effect on the Substack account. In essence, I could still remain here with all my Subscribers simply without the option of taking paid pledges. However, I would be able to at least point people to other potential payment mechanisms, whether crypto or whatever else we might find that is not deplatform-friendly—if such a thing even exists, which is doubtful.
Crypto is the only real option that can bypass deplatforming entirely, but it’s also the most complicated with the least amount of subscribers likely to be interested in learning to use it. But I’d love to hear any other ideas people might have.
One of the only reasons I joined Twitter/X and decided to begin growing the account recently was Musk’s proposal to eventually turn it into its own payment processor and merchant, which—for all Musks’s failings—would likely be the best deplatformization-resistant alternative in the world. But there is no recent data on how far along he is with getting the needed certifications for that. It’s something that’ll certainly rankle the elites and which they’ll try to stop.
Finally, a part of me was hesitant to write this account in fear that it could turn away potential paid subscribers because they might view subscribing as pointless, given that I might ‘be a goner’ soon anyway.
But, one: I think these events are too important to hide, so I’d rather take the chance and put it all out in the open to expose what’s going on. And two: in truth, the best thing that prospective subscribers can do is “stick it to the man” by showering my account with paid pledges as a sign of solidarity and that we won’t back down. Maybe Stripe will see the flood of green waterfalling through their plumbing and have second thoughts about any naughty deplatformization.
That’s partly tongue-in-cheek: this is not actually a cry for more subs, as I already did very well with the last paywalled article and your support nearly blew me off the chair with an unexpected windfall. However, it’s to merely express the thought that we can’t let them win, we have to fight for every inch. If they want to take us down, then let them do it with us going down swinging rather than rolling over.
So while it’s not a call for subs, it’s to tell those who might have been warming to subscribing in the future to not be intimidated or dissuaded by these attacks. Let’s keep this train rolling until the wheels come off. And even when they come off, I’ll keep it rolling for free if I have to, until alternatives can be found—these fragile nannies won’t silence us.
I’m not deterred even in the slightest by these laughable attacks. In fact, it has revved me up to go even harder at exposing the things they don’t want you to hear. Not to mention it even provided an unexpected ego-boost: when you realize you could be the first Substacker in history to be entirely cut off at the merchant bank level, it means you’re really living rent-free in the heads of some powerful archons. It tickles me to picture them tossing and turning in their magnetic floating beds, losing agonizing sleep over my spilled ink.
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Lastly, just as an exploratory precaution, I’d like to get a bead on—if worst came to worst—how many of my paid subscribers would be willing to join me on another platform that would require registering for an entirely new and different payment system? As I said, most likely I would stay on Substack anyway, but this is just to get a preliminary and helpful read on the audience that could help potential decisions later. Don’t be afraid to say “no”—there’s nothing embarrassing about that as I’m fully aware there are likely people who subscribe only out of convenience of this platform (which does make it extremely convenient, I agree), and for whom switching to another platform is not really worth the effort.
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