Wikipedia vs Substack

Anything you contribute is generally public and forms a permanent record tied to your username or temporary account. This can create lasting privacy and reputational consequences.

You can read and even edit without a standard account, and a normal account usually needs only a username and password. This materially lowers the amount of personal data you must hand over to participate.

Wikimedia expressly says it does not sell your information or share it for third-party marketing. That is a strong privacy commitment compared with many ad-supported platforms.

Photos or videos may include device metadata such as time and location, and that can become public unless you change your device settings. Users can accidentally reveal where or when media was created.

If you contribute content you own, you generally license it for broad public reuse under free licenses and cannot later unilaterally revoke that permission. In practice, you give up control over future reuse of your contributions.

The policy says personal information is kept only as long as reasonably needed and is often deleted, aggregated, or de-identified after 90 days. This is a meaningful retention limit for nonpublic data.

Users can request access, correction, restriction or objection, deletion-related help, and a copy of their data for transfer. Some data controls and downloads are also available directly in account settings.

Legal claims against Wikimedia generally must be brought in San Francisco County under California law, and claims may need to be filed within one year if that is earlier than otherwise allowed. This can make disputes harder for non-California users.

Wikimedia provides the service and content without warranties of accuracy, safety, availability, or fitness for a particular purpose. If information is wrong or the service fails, your remedies may be limited.

Substantial privacy policy changes get advance notice and a 30-day public comment period. This is more transparent than silent or immediate policy updates.

The service uses cookies, local storage, JavaScript, and tracking pixels for security, analytics, and functionality, but says it will not use third-party cookies without permission. This is less aggressive than many sites, though still not tracking-free.

Most disputes must be resolved through individual arbitration in San Francisco County, and users waive the ability to bring class or representative actions. This can make claims harder and more expensive to pursue.

You keep ownership of your posts, but Substack gets a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license to use and distribute them. That means rights you grant do not end just because you leave the platform.

Substack collects extensive information including payment data, device and IP data, location, social account info, subscription status, and direct message contents and metadata. This creates a fairly comprehensive profile of users.

Substack says it may collect information about your online activity after you leave its website, and it does not honor Do Not Track signals. Users who want minimal tracking may find this intrusive.

Substack says users may request access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability, and objection to some processing. It also commits to responding within one month, with limited extensions.

Substack can remove content or suspend accounts at its sole discretion, sometimes without notice. Users may have limited recourse if moderation or enforcement decisions affect their publication.

Deleting your account does not guarantee full removal of public posts or backup copies. Content may also remain visible if others copied or stored it.

When you subscribe to a publication, Substack shares your name and email with that creator, and creators govern their own downstream privacy practices. Your data protections may therefore vary by publication.

Substack direct messages are not end-to-end encrypted, and staff may access them for safety, support, or enforcement purposes. Recipients may also keep messages even if you delete them or your account.

Users can access, edit, or delete some profile information through account settings, and can delete their account from the account page. This gives users practical control without requiring manual support contact.

Substack says marketing messages are consent-based where required and can be unsubscribed from at any time. This limits unwanted promotional communications.

Substack says it will alert users to material changes to the privacy policy and terms by site notice, email, or other means. That is more transparent than silent updates.