“We don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away.”

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.”

  • mo_ztt ✅English
    2•11 months ago

    Let’s take the Web out of the equation.

    Happy to.

    Let’s imagine this is all being done using the old-school printing press.

    With you so far.

    Let’s say Substack is a magazine publisher.

    Sounds good. The situation’s a little different because the publisher exercises editorial control over what they’re publishing, can get sued if it crosses certain lines, and so on, whereas literally any random person can publish stuff on Substack with some legal and technical differences. But it’s a pretty close analogy.

    If you publish a Nazi magazine, that Nazis pay you to subscribe to …

    With you.

    … and you pay the Nazi authors of the Nazi articles in your Nazi magazine …

    This is where it breaks down for me. This would be something like Substack Pro, where Substack really is subsidizing and organizing the make the Nazi content happen, instead of just hosting it like a Lemmy instance hosts a community. If they were giving Substack Pro to Nazis, then yes, I’d have a problem with that. That would fit very well with what you’re describing.

    I would describe this part of the analogy as applying a little more sensibly to something like, Substack is the print shop that typesets the material for the Nazi magazine on behalf of the Nazi that wants to publish it. The Nazi is organizing their subscribers. The Nazi is putting out the content. The print shop is taking a cut, and willing to do business with Nazis. Are they free to say no? Absolutely. Actually in that analogy I’d probably refuse to typeset the magazine as well, for what it’s worth. Are they also free, though, to say, no, this is a free speech issue and we believe the KKK is allowed to have rallies and the Nazis are allowed to publish magazines? Sure. That to me would be a sensible thing to say. I don’t like Nazis any more than you do. But I do think they should be allowed to publish magazines, yes, and I think that applies to making it actually possible for them to publish, and not just the government telling them they have permission, but the system they’re placed within making it impossible for it to actually happen.

    … then you’re a material supporter of Nazism.

    In financial flow terms, the Nazi subscribers are supporting Substack through the 10% cut that Substack takes. No money is flowing out of the Substack account to the Nazis without having first flowed in from other Nazis, and Substack keeps some of it. Right? That’s why I think the print shop analogy is a little more fitting in this case.