Twenty five days ago, I sent the first issue of this newsletter. A day later, I was banned from Beehiiv.
An influencer with a massive following claimed I had scraped his email and that he never opted in to my newsletter. Beehiiv apparently also saw five abuse reports in the first hour and, acting as risk managers, shut me down.
The claim was false. I had the logs: he’d opted in directly to my Beehiiv landing page via LinkedIn (where he was a follower of mine at the time he made this claim) over a year ago. No scraping, no imports. Just a standard signup that had aged.
But on the internet, accusation scales faster than verification.
(if you want my side of the story vs this influencer, my post addressing it is here: https://x.com/brockpierson/status/2016559751187091778?s=20)
The Lesson: Memory vs. Compliance
Even if you are technically compliant, time degrades consent. If someone signed up two years ago and forgets, receiving an email today feels like spam. When that person has a platform, their perception becomes your reality.
Platforms understandably may not only care about your database logs; they also care about minimizing blowback. If you build on someone else’s infrastructure, you are always downstream of their risk tolerance. To be fair to them, they did mention the 5 abuse reports within the first hour of the email send which makes sense with such an old email list.
To fix this, I audited my system… trimming the email list to those who opted in within the last year or opened the first send.
Starting Again (With Clarity)
I’m restarting this intentionally. No growth hacks, no ambiguity… just deliberate writing.
What to expect moving forward:
Social Media Growth: What actually moves the needle vs. what’s just trending.
AI: Practical leverage for builders, not hype cycles.
Tech Strategy: Understanding where incentives are shifting.
If you’re here and don’t want these emails, please hit unsubscribe. No hard feelings at all.
If you stay, reply back with your username on 𝕏 and I will follow you back if I have not already and/or take note of who is here.
I’m building something sturdier this time.
Onward.
— Brock
The Attention Layer