- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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.”
This would be silly even if they didn’t moderate at all but they do. They don’t allow sex workers use their service. And we aren’t talking about “Nazis” as a code word for the far right. The complaint letter cited literal Nazis with swastika logos.
Plus, how grand are his delusions of grandeur if he thinks his fucking glorified email blast manager is the one true hope for free speech? Let the Nazis self-host an open source solution (like Ghost).
What about a nazi sex worker ?
I guess exceptions could be made …
Do they not allow sex workers to use their service? Here’s a sex worker who posts on Substack.
I believe keeping the ability for sex workers to post there intact is a good reason not to ban Nazis – basically, deciding who are “good” posters and allowing only them leads to a steadily-expanding list of “bad” categories of people who need to get banned, with sex workers as an obvious additional early target.
If you’re open to reading an article from Reason.com expanding on this take, which I partially agree with, there it is.
(Edit: Restructured so that more of the argument comes directly from me, as opposed to Reason.com)
They don’t allow sexually explicit content. From their TOS:
So, a porn star could write about the industry but couldn’t use it like “OnlyFans but blog” where she had a post and included some pictures for subscribers.
Which is fine. They’re the publisher. They can decide smut is a step too far. But don’t pretend to be some free speech martyr for publishing Nazi propaganda while banning showing a tit.
… which is very different from “not allowing sex workers to use their service,” and undermines the whole argument that “well they do do moderation, they just think Nazis are on the ‘ok’ list.” I would have had a totally different response if the person I was responding to had tried to argue that since they don’t allow actual porn, they should also be obligated to ban extreme viewpoints.
I’m not at all surprised that a Koch-funded publication thinks that Substack should allow Nazis to use their platform to make money.
Ad hominem. Nice. That said, I get it if you think Reason.com is a sketchy source to try to point to as an argument for anything. I restructured my message, so I’m simply stating my facts and opinions directly, so you can disagree directly if you like, instead of just jeering at the “Reason.com” part of it.
If the fact that I cited “Reason.com” as an aside is a problem, but it’s not a problem the person I was replying to was calmly stating something that was highly relevant to the argument that wasn’t actually true… you might be only concerned with whether something agrees with your biases, not whether it’s accurate. Does that not seem like a problem to you?
The Kochs are Nazis. That’s not an ad hominem, that’s just a fact.
https://www.mockingbirdpaper.com/content/david-koch-industrialist-and-holocaust-denier-dies-age-79-american-politicians-scramble-new
They were even partly raised by a Nazi.
https://www.npr.org/2016/01/19/463565987/hidden-history-of-koch-brothers-traces-their-childhood-and-political-rise
And no, it doesn’t seem like a problem to me to call Nazis Nazis. Because they’re Nazis.
“Ad hominem” refers to ignoring the content of a message, and making your argument based on who is speaking. It doesn’t mean that your statement about the speaker isn’t factual, or that understanding more about who is speaking might not be relevant – it simply refers to the idea that you should at some point address the content of the message if you’re going to debate it.
In this case, I said something, you ignored the content and instead focused on the fact that I’d linked to something, and criticized the source of the thing I’d linked to. Okay, fair enough, the Koch brothers are Nazis. I don’t like them either. If you want to respond to the content of my message, I’ve now reframed it so the stuff I’m saying is coming directly from me, so that “but Reason.com!” isn’t any longer a way to dismiss it because of who is speaking.
I’m aware. And that is perfectly valid when the content of the message is defending monetizing Nazis is funded by Nazis.
You missed what I’m saying. I’m not funded by Nazis. You took my message and ignored what I was saying in favor of criticizing Reason.com. Fair enough. I was inviting you to continue the conversation, if you have an argument against the content, now that I’ve removed anything that could be construed as “because Reason.com says so” and simply said what I think about it.
Was your message based on what you read on a Nazi website? Otherwise, why did you link to it?
So no, I’m not suggesting you’re funded by Nazis. I’m suggesting that’s who you get your information from in order to make your argument, hence your linking to it.