More than 200 Substack authors asked the platform to explain why it’s “platforming and monetizing Nazis,” and now they have an answer straight from co-founder Hamish McKenzie:
I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.
While McKenzie offers no evidence to back these ideas, this tracks with the company’s previous stance on taking a hands-off approach to moderation. In April, Substack CEO Chris Best appeared on the Decoder podcast and refused to answer moderation questions. “We’re not going to get into specific ‘would you or won’t you’ content moderation questions” over the issue of overt racism being published on the platform, Best said. McKenzie followed up later with a similar statement to the one today, saying “we don’t like or condone bigotry in any form.”
I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either
Actions speak louder than words. Fuck Substack and fuck any platform that offers a safe haven for nazis.
“I want you to know that I don’t like nazis. But I am fine platforming them and profiting from them. Now here is some bullshit about silencing ‘ideas.’”
“I don’t like Nazis… but you have to understand, they’re very profitable.”
Yea… Meta took the same “free peaches” approach and the entire fucking globe is now dealing with various versions of white nationalism. So like, can we actually give censorship of hate a fucking try for once? I’m willing to go down that road.
To be clear — what McKenzie is saying here is that Substack will continue to pay Nazis to write Nazi essays. Not just that they will host Nazi essays (at Substack’s cost), but they will pay for them.
They are, in effect, hiring Nazis to compose Nazi essays.
Nazism doesn’t deserve tolerance, any person who doesn’t punch it in the face is equal or worse.
“we don’t like or condone bigotry in any form.” I mean they are litterally Condoning bigotry.
“His response similarly doesn’t engage other questions from the Substackers Against Nazis authors, like why these policies allow it to moderate spam and newsletters from sex workers but not Nazis.”
Doesn’t seem very consistent.
Substack: Nazis are cool, but you better not be selling sex related shit! We have standards!
“We do not condone Nazi propaganda, but we are very concerned about sex work causing social degeneracy.”
Substack is likely very concerned about the purity of the volk
Condone (transitive verb): To overlook, forgive, or disregard (an offense) without protest or censure.
Neat.
Interesting, I generally think of the Merriam-Webster definition:
to regard or treat (something bad or blameworthy) as acceptable, forgivable, or harmless
Or perhaps even further than that: actually approving of something. Guess “condone” is a little weaker of a word than I thought. But its popularity calls for being extra careful of even overlooking wrongdoing.
Okay fine, I’m never clicking on a substack link again.
And after say a grace period of about 6 months to move elsewhere, I’m going to assume anyone associating with the service is at best a nazi sympathiser
Go ahead, be a Nazi bar, I’m sure their money is worth it
This is such a complicated feeling… On one hand, I agree. But on the other, we can’t specifically pinpoint what censorship is valid and what isn’t.
Edit: Obviously, I’m not considering Nazis in this thought experiment.
Edit 2: OH MY GOD PEOPLE! OF FUCKING COURSE WE SHOULD KEEP NAZIS OUT FFS! 😑
look i mean, wherever the line is, im pretty confident nazis are on the other side of it
If you’re still hand wringing over whether or not Nazis are scum of the Earth that deserve nothing more than pure vitriol and ostracisation, you might be a Nazi.
Obviously, I’m not considering Nazis in this thought experiment.
But on the other, we can’t specifically pinpoint what censorship is valid and what isn’t.
Yes we can. Kicking Nazis off their platform is valid censorship. Nazis lost the right to have a seat at the table in 1945.
It is only censorship when it is the government, else it is normal people not wanting to deal with Nazis.
If you really want your white supremacists views out there just roll your own setup
What does Substack plan to do with the profits that it makes from hosting Nazi content?
Gen Z needs to understand the historical lesson that the Blues Brothers taught those before them. Illinois Nazis exist, and some days they demonstrate, as per their right to freedom of speech - but this is as much as an opportunity to humiliate them and openly critique the mindset as anyone else. Dark little underground communities flourish behind closed doors.
Yeah. I feel like we see this shift in the ACLU. They used to represent some disgusting clients in order to fight for constitutional rights. Now a days the ACLU seems to struggle with protecting constitutional rights for the sake of constitutional rights, and instead is trying to do more politically liberal focused issues.
Shining daylight onto them does not mean monetizing a platform for them.
Goodbye substack.
Is substack used in the EU? They might want to rethink their stance then…
EU will start screaming at Substack for failure to filter out hate speech.
Nope, as far as I know only a couple of countries has explict laws againt Nazi (Germany obviously and Italy to some extend).
But in the end it will be the person to be persecuted if any crime is committed, not the medium.
Nobody in Italy think to punish or boycott a company just because the mafia is using and paying the company’s products or services.
We already knew that SS liked Nazis.
All joking aside, silencing Nazis and deplatforming them is LITERALLY fighting against them. How is allowing them to make money and market themselves on your platform doing anything to stem the tide of Nazism? Obviously they’re playing culture war games and saying they’re not.
Yeah, people don’t seem to realize how insidious this shit is. Unfettered capitalism is allowing these fuckers to gain credibility and giving them a soapbox under the guise of “free speech.”
The desire for profit above all else, combined with the fact that the last of the people alive during (and old enough to understand) WW2 dying off, has been allowing fascism to wrap its filthy tendrils around our society once again. Preventing these people from taking power needs to be our priority, but unfortunately, constantly having to fight against this shit impedes all other progress.
Free speech is not absolute. Fascists (and particularly ones that call themselves Nazis) have no place in modern society, and they should be given no quarter because we’ve seen what happens if we don’t.
So they have no rules, any content is acceptable?
Anything less is “censorship” after all
They probably have to follow laws and that’s it.
Seems like fine platform, imo. Just let people communicate with the same amount of freedom they would have in real life.
In real life, a restaurant can and will kick you out and ban you from the premises for wearing a swastika and saying you think minorities don’t deserve to live.
Ergo, being kicked off a company’s privately owned server for hate speech is EXACTLY the same amount of freedom they would have in real life.
Yeah, and if people don’t like what you say they can block you.
What’s the problem?
I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views.
“But we’ll gladly host those views on our platform, run ads alongside them, and profit from them.”
I see literalnazis.com is available for cheap if anybody want to 302 that to substack.
Another day of thanking
godthe devs for the decentralized Fediverse and Lemmy 🙏😔
