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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.”
That is incredibly flawed reasoning you can use to justify literally anything. People have a tendency to murder each other, should we just acknowledge thats the reality and not bother trying to stop it?
This is not a good faith argument. Nazis weren’t outlawed in Germany until after the holocaust and you know that. They were able to come to power BECAUSE they enjoyed protections at the time. and US Nazis had a lot of influence in the US. Jews in the US were subject to much the same treatment as they were in pre-war Europe. American Nazis were effective in minimising US contributions to the war before Pearl Harbour. And thats not even to mention groups like the KKK and the Jim Crow era that came about because of them.
This is exactly the problem I have with Liberals. Its almost as if you only care about your own plausible deniability. “I didnt know he was planning on murdering Jews, all he did was say Hitler was right and shouldnt have been stopped (which is perfectly acceptable) I couldnt have known he would kill all those Jews, so my conscience is clean for putting in no effort to stop them”
Like seriously, if there was a prominent Nazi in your community saying shit like that. And someone you know personally came to you, saying they were scared the Nazi is going to hurt them, what would you do? Give them a nice long lecture on how the founding fathers wanted people to be able to be Nazis so they just have to deal with it? If then the next day, that Nazi killed them after you did nothing, would it weigh on your conscience at all? Or would your enlightened take of free speech keep it clean and let you hold your head high?
You can say this all you want, but if you dont take action and just turn a blind eye to it, then it does not matter in the slightest what you think. If you’re walking down the street and you see someone being beaten and you think to yourself “wow, violently beating someone is a problem” then carry on walking, are you any different than someone that enjoys seeing it?
Literally completely the opposite of reality. and you can clearly see that with places that allow these shitheads to congregate. Do you think twitter has become a place of enlightenment and de-radicalisation since Musk took over and went on his freedom of speech circle jerk? or do you think its gotten worse? Or how about 4Chan? Is that a bastion of mulitculturalism and understanding because they allow nazis? Because the PAINFULLY obvious reality is: If you allow nazis to communicate, find each other, spread their ideas and radicalise people who arent nazis, then OF FUCKING COURSE you just end up with more Nazis, that are better organised and have like minded people that can vindicate them, back them up and make them feel like theyre in the right. Like its such an obvious outcome that im struggling to believe you dont get and are acting in good faith. Like you talk about universities making people less racist, then say how bad it would be if the expelled Nazis, WHICH IS WHAT THEY CURRENTLY DO, and it WHY they are places that make people less racist, because theres no Nazis there to influence them and groom them to be massive racists.
I mean 1. thats a classic slippery slope fallacy, and 2. If they came for Rogan it would be for his misinformation, rather than hatespeech, which is a whole different kettle of fish.
I had a long day, so I don’t have time to do much more than some quick responses:
Humans naturally tend to talk to one another and communicate. Any amount of obstacles you try to put between them, they’ll find ways around unless you put way more effort in than is reasonable or safe into stopping them. With some rare exceptions, you should just let them communicate. It’s better. I don’t feel the same way about murder.
The US has strong protections for abhorrent-to-the-majority political speech. It’s one of its notably unique features, and was virtually un-heard-of in other governments as of the early 20th century. Once the Nazis were in the majority in Germany, of course their speech was going to be protected, but I’m saying that their rights as a minority party, before they came into power, weren’t formally protected by law in Germany in the same way they were in the US. There was no German ACLU making sure that they couldn’t get in trouble for having rallies. And yet, somehow, they made it work and took control in Germany. And yet, somehow, in the US where they were allowed to have rallies and publish newspapers and etc before during and after the German Nazis lost the war, they were never able to take over. That leads me to think that them having a platform or not isn’t as critical a factor in their spread as it sounds like you’re saying it is.
My family was Jewish, earlier than pre-war, in Europe. It depended on your specific part of Europe, but as a general rule, this isn’t even close to accurate. That’s why we came to the US. This is a pretty good high level summary.
I hate Nazis. I’m not saying all this because I want Naziism to grow in the US. I’m saying it because I consider Nazi speech so abhorrent that giving it a good airing will turn people against it more than it will attract people to it. I don’t think people are as simple-minded as “I saw Nazi stuff” -> “am Nazi now”. I have a hard time believing your summary of how it works on college campuses if you don’t kick out the Nazis. Who are some examples of students who’ve been kicked out of their colleges because they were Nazis? Thus protecting the rest of them? I just have trouble believing that it happens the way you’re describing.
I’ll say this – the one person I know who comes to mind offhand who’s interacted with a real IRL neo-Nazi, it was in Germany, not in the US.
On 4chan, you kind of have a point. 4chan has specific features (primarily anonymity) that are attractive to Nazis and encourage their spread. Twitter has full-throated support for Nazis built into it from the founder. I think those factors are important too, not just the failure to kick out Nazis. I do think there’s a good case to be made there to contrast different ways of designing networks so that they won’t form breeding grounds for Nazis. My personal belief is that something like “Substack with Nazis” would be very, very different from 4chan and modern Twitter. My evidence? Substack today is Substack with Nazis, and it’s very very different from 4chan and modern Twitter.
Letting them communicate is different to giving them a soapbox and a club house. Which is why even the 1st amendment rights you hold in such high regard as exception protection for hate speech, doesnt force private companies to allow it.
Why though?
The Nazis were allowed to hold rallies and publish newspapers in Germany too. Thats how they became so powerful, and how they became powerful in the US too, that is until the bombing of pearl harbour and the government raiding the headquarters of The German American Bund and arresting their leaders. After which American Nazi’s lost all their influence. funny that. And then they’ve never been able to gain power in any country that has taken a strong stance against them. And you can use communism as an example too, communists were never able to gain influence in the west and especially America, despite how popular the idea was because of the active effort that went into stopping them.
I agree, thats why im not against talking about Nazis and the things they do and why its so abhorrent, but nazis dont convert people by just showing them a swastika and thinking it will hypnotise them, they have deceptive propaganda and sophisticated methods of bringing people over to their side. Like if you’ve ever hear the idea of a “pipeline” you’ll know what im talking about. They will take people (young white men) and prey on the problems they have, giving them “solutions” to them that put the blame on others and vindicate their existing belief’s to get them to go along with it and then start to tell them that their life’s problems are because of [The Enemy] and convince them to direct all their frustrations on them. and slowly radicalise them, until theyre fully on board with being nazis.
Well I wouldnt know any off the top of my head, but a quick google shows plenty of results
https://news.sky.com/story/warwick-students-expelled-and-fined-after-racist-messages-11402539#:~:text=The Midlands university expels three,declaring love for Adolf Hitler.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/11/23/a-self-proclaimed-nazi-is-banned-from-his-college-campus-in-florida-but-allowed-to-remain-a-student/
and again to use communism as a counter example, universities are where many people become socialist/communist because the organise there and can get the word out. If Nazis were allowed to do the same you would have much higher rates of kids becoming nazis.
Can you show any examples of universities that allow nazis to enrol and form clubs and organise?
But the point is it wouldnt be better than a “substack without nazis”. Like not every board on 4 chan is overrun with nazis, not every section of twitter is controlled by chuds. There are "good’ parts to each website, just like substack. But if they removed nazis from their site entirely then all 3 would only get better.
Like your core argument is that its better to let them shout their propaganda as it will actually hinder them right?
Then can you name a single website or hell even a physical publication or space or anything of the sort that went from “Nazis arent tolerated” to “Nazis are tolerated” and actually got better? That helped people de-radicalise instead of just serving Nazi propaganda, giving them money and helping them recruit?
Again, it doesn’t matter what you think. Because you’re completely unwilling to actually do anything about it. and its the same with any issue, its all well and good if you’re against homelessness, but if you dont give to charities or vote to build homeless shelters etc. Then what does it matter? You can justify it by saying “But letting people see homeless people on the streets is actually a good thing because it will air the issue out and let people come to their own conclusions about homelessness being bad.” if you want, but that doesnt change anything.
Im non binary, and have many trans friends. People used to not give a shit until the right organised together to hate us. Now because of your glorious free speech they have been given a pass to be awful disgusting human being and spread their hate and ive lost 3 friends in 5 years to suicide because of it, because of things you think should be not only protected by law, but actively given a platform, advertised and monetised by companies like sub stack. Is the lives of those people a good trade for you? are you just going to ignore this question like ignored all the other questions that would have uncomfortable answers for you?
(Eh, fuck it, I already spent this much time on it. Part 2:)
Pretty much any forum that includes Nazis will get worse as a result, yes. Absolutely 100%. That’s why I wouldn’t ever “force” a forum operator to include Nazis if they don’t want to. But:
Yes. Absolutely yes. With a caveat but mainly, yes.
Nazi ideology is abhorrent. Most people hate it. Most people, if they find out it’s going on in their community, are going to be fucking disgusted, and curious to know more about where the fuck is this even coming from. I absolutely think that Nazis feeling like they can be open about being Nazis is way better than keeping secretive and doing the same shit they would be doing, just without associating in the public sphere. I’d be happy to check with experts on extremism to make sure that they feel the same, if you’re open to hearing it.
Basically, if a forum is open to signing up to be the lightning-rod of bad faith they’re going to get from the Nazis, and abuse they’re going to get from the wider community, and degradation their forum is going to suffer as a result, in order to let the Nazis into the public sphere so that people can see for real what’s going on, and talk back to the Nazis directly instead of having all the Nazi-to-Nazi communication go on in some other place that the public isn’t privy to, I think that’s a good thing. 100%. I think that’s going to hurt the Nazis. Again, I’d be happy to check with experts on extremism to make sure that they feel the same, if you’re open to hearing it.
The caveat: That doesn’t mean I’m naive about the danger of letting these ideologies have a good foothold in society. You said “let them shout their propaganda”… I think combating Nazi propaganda is an important thing to do, yes. I think putting Nazis out of business or in prison because of their crime is fuckin’ fantastic.
I think it’s extremely important to combat Nazi propaganda when it comes in more subtle form, pipelines, engineered disinformation, or things without Swastikas (your TPUSAs and your Patriot Fronts). Those, to me, are much more dangerous than Substack blogs with swastikas. That’s a different thing from kicking the swastikas off Substack though.
I am sorry for your loss. I’ve lost a friend to suicide. It sucked.
I want to talk to you about this, because I take it pretty seriously and obviously the rise of hatred on the internet is a huge problem.
I’m a little hesitant to say more because I don’t want to sound like I’m probing for information about something so personal or using it to “debate” with you. That’s honestly not my goal here. If you’re open to talk more I can tell you what I think would be a good ways to actually reduce hatred on the internet. I’m going to say this with all the kindness in the world: Kicking the Nazi blogs off Substack isn’t going to do shit. Not in the sense of “too small but any little bit is helpful.” In the sense of “counterproductive, putting you and your friends in more danger.”
Tell you what – if you’re comfortable, explain it to me. What type of hatred has directly impacted you, what needs to happen to fix things in your view. Any level of detail that you’re comfortable with, if at all. My goal is more just to explain myself and hear you out as opposed to “debate,” so let me hear you out.
(Edit: Reframing it so we’re talking about “hatred against trans people on 4chan” and what to do about it instead of “Nazi philosophy on Substack” and what to do about it makes a lot of what you’re saying and how you’re reacting make more sense. Nazis are going to be pretty rare, although they’re out there. Anti-trans people are in the modern climate everywhere. That’s why I’m asking more directly for the root of what you’re talking about.)
Which questions didn’t I answer? I’ll address anything you want to ask me if I missed any questions before or anything.
I feel like you may be wanting to “debate” this, like until one of us “wins,” which isn’t my goal here. But if what I wrote before wasn’t a good enough explanation to understand my point of view, here goes:
I don’t feel the same way about murder because humans don’t naturally tend to murder each other. It does happen in certain circumstances, but there’s actually a massive resistance to it internally. Militaries have to do careful psychological training to make sure people are ready to kill because there’s so much resistance. Most people tell each other what they think at least once a day, and communication networks for formally sharing each other’s opinions get a lot of use. Most people go their whole lives without murdering one another other. Even in societies with permitted circumstances where people can kill each other and it’s fine, it’s a pretty rare thing.
In conclusion, using a communication network to share your ideas is a fairly natural thing. More so than murder.
Does that answer the question? Again, you don’t have to agree with me on this point of view, but it’s honestly a little hard for me to believe that my explanation wasn’t a coherent explanation of what I think. If you’re using “why” as code for “I want to argue, say something to ‘prove’ your side and convince me, let’s keep going back and forth about it,” I would prefer not to.
I think we may just not be able to see eye to eye on this.
(Side note, if that Wikipedia article is to be believed, the Black Panthers got treated way worse than the Bund. No one assassinated any Bund leaders like they did Fred Hampton, at least according to the article.)
Do you agree with what I just wrote so far? Agree that those three bullet points are factually accurate, at least? I feel like there’s so much gulf between how we see these events that it’s gonna be tough to find any type of common ground here.
(Edit: Ken Parker wasn’t expelled. He was still allowed to attend online classes, and presumably to speak in those classes and all. They just kicked him off campus because of physical safety concerns, which sounds pretty fucking justified)
Those people are being
expelledbecause of a wide variety of stuff, including Naziism, but also posting favorably about rape, holding assault rifles and saying he’ll “shut down” other students, a lot more than just “being Nazis.” It sounds like they wereexpelledfor things I’m fully in favor of expelling people for. I’m talking about someone like Richard Spenser – who says Nazi things but only rarely commits actual physical crimes (although often enough to put himself in trouble).It looks from a quick search like there are multiple universities that have invited him to speak, so it’d be surprising if any student who emulated him was instantly expelled right after they invited him to speak. Do you have an example of something like that?
I think we are simply too far apart in how we see the world to have this conversation. I’m getting sort of echoes of religious people who say “But if God isn’t there to punish you what’s to stop you doing rape and murder?”
Most people in my circle of people I know consider themselves “allowed” to start to follow Nazi ideology, if they want to. 0% of them do it because they’re not fucking psychopaths (or even if they are, not to that level). In college, it was the same. Communism as an ideology (the Karl Marx version at least) doesn’t involve exterminating any inferior races, so people are more into it. You really believe that if people were “allowed” to be Nazis, a lot of them would? The only reason communism gets more followers is communists are “allowed” and Nazis are not?
Let me ask you a 100% sincere question. Who is it that should decide what is “allowed” and not? The university administration? State or federal government? Student organization threatening boycotts if people start to “allow” the wrong types of ideologies? Who?
(Spent too much time on this, I’ll write up a part 2 that includes replies to the rest of your message later on.)
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
article | about