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.”
In what way is advertising and marketing the same as Mein Kampf?
Pinching the bridge of my nose here. Nazi blog posts are marketing for nazi beliefs. They’re posting because they have ideas that they want you to have, too. What do you think marketing is? Ok, let’s assume you’re asking in good faith.
When you see an ad you don’t typically run right out and buy it. But now you’re more aware of whatever they’re advertising. Maybe that’s a new car. Maybe it’s pepsi. Maybe it’s “You should recycle.” And maybe, when it’s a literal nazi post, it’s “the jews are the problem”. Some people will bounce right off the ad… Some people will immediately click through, read the related links, blah blah. And many people who read it will sort of remember it, and now have context for the next post they see. The more ads they see for nazi beliefs (or anything, really), the more likely they are to be persuaded.
If you saw posts every day that promoted nazism as a solution for the world’s problems, it would have an effect on you. Look how effective fox news has been at propagating right wing beliefs.
I really wish people would do this more often. Hanlons razor. “Don’t attribute to malice what can so easily be attributed to ignorance”.
Stop assuming you know anything about my motives or beliefs. Stop assuming I’m saying things in “bad faith”. I’m aware right-wing cretins on QAnon have scripts and tricks around making bad faith arguments but that shouldn’t stifle us discussing things. It’s lazy from you, annoying for me and ruins the chance for others to learn something.
Having said that - thank you for your response. When I read the first sentence I started typing a long-winded reply but then I read the rest and had to stop. It’s now been ruminating in my head for most of the day and I’ll be honest - I hadn’t thought of it like that!
Not that it should matter but my political leanings are in the bottom left quadrant of the political compass. “Socialist Libertarian”. I’m not a Nazi and I despise them but I don’t believe in taking away people’s rights to protect me. I’m capable of protecting myself. Those that aren’t capable of protecting themselves (e.g. kids) have parents/guardians to protect them.
My motivation for the comment is probably spurred by recent developments in UK and EU law that are pushing draconian porn ID rules. Creating databases of adults and their porn preferences because parents are too fucking stupid to implement the adult filter on their router or ISP provider. So ALL of us have to suffer for the ignorance of parents.
I have a visceral hatred of any censorship and prohibition. Prohibition of certain texts pushed me and other high school kids to find ways to make bombs. 70% of university students experiment with drugs after a lifetime of prohibition from parents, teachers and government. Having said that you’re right about Fox News! I don’t think it’s healthy for major platforms to pump out dangerous misinformation. Similar channels have cropped up in the UK (GBNews) and it’s been a nightmare seeing idiots taken in by the misinformation.
Which leads me to think there is a solution here: Education.
One of my best lessons in high school 25yrs ago was an English class where we read various newspaper articles and broke down the biases and language used. Another is my A-level politics class where we spent many lessons dissecting the history and realities of political ideologies.
I feel those lessons inoculated me to a great degree from the effects of bullshit throughout life.
I think we’re both right. I see your point that if we normalise these dangerous ideologies we risk acting on them. But at the same time I feel complete prohibition results in making it worse.
Ultimately, I think a balance needs to be struck and I think language, history and political education are key to making sure we don’t fall for these things.
Yeah, I try to be patient with people. Sometimes they’re trolls, but sometimes they’re just people. And sometimes even when they are trolls, being patient gets better results, anyway. Thanks for you reply. It’s rare for someone on the internet to admit the other person’s argument had any traction at all. Good on you.
We probably agree on things more than our initial interaction would make it look. I’m also not a fan of government mandated “enter your ID to see porn online” rules. There are many reasons that’s a bad idea that we don’t need to go into right now. But I think a key difference between that topic and the substack-with-nazis thing we started on is the involvement of government. The porn-id thing is the government forcing an action. The substack thing is all private people.
If the government, backed with all the power that comes from the state, was going to enforce what you can and cannot write on your website I would be extremely skeptical of that policy. I’d consider it for hate-speech or literal nazism, but even then the devils are surely in the details.
The topic here though is a private organization. Substack, as a private organization, is choosing to allow nazis hang out on their platform. They could choose otherwise. They are not legally bound one way or the other, but people are 100% entitled to call them a bunch of assholes for letting the nazis in. People can cut business ties with substack, tell people who are using it that they’re not going to engage with them, either, until the situation changes, and so on. All of that is firmly in the free speech and free association camp.
The question isn’t really “Is substack breaking the law?” so much as “Is substack doing a good thing?” Moderation and choosing who can use your platform is a kind of speech. It’s not enforced by an inscrutable god-machine or malicious genie, either. Substack would choose to just not let nazis use their platform. But maybe we already agree on this point.
The nazis could go set up their own website with their own blog. They have that freedom (in most places - Germany might be an exception). But we’re not obligated to make it easy for them.
Those sound like good classes. I mentioned somewhere else (possibly in this thread) about a class I took in college for journalism 101. We were assigned several websites to review, and had to determine which ones were legitimate and which ones weren’t. That kind of skill is probably something that should be taught more widely.
I’m glad you remember the lessons. Just don’t fall prey to hubris. My mother always was pretty reasonable, but in her old age she’s been slipping into some bad politics. She thinks she’s too smart to be fooled like those other idiots.
I think we’re converging on agreement. I would be hesitant to back complete prohibition at the government level, but I will object if I see someone supporting nazis. Substack doesn’t have to host them. They can buy their own server.
In a lot of languages advertising and propaganda are literally the same word. The only difference is whether the goal is commercial or political.
I’m still not sure how that relates to the point I was making.
I don’t want anyone to censor what I’m allowed to see.
If you’re asking if that’s how I feel about advertising then yes - of course. Like I said I want to be wholly responsible for what I see or don’t see. I don’t want people a government or corporation parenting my viewing.
The corporation already makes choices about your viewing. Unless it’s a completely unmoderated wiki, they make choices about what is allowed. There are presumably lines that substack (or anyone) are unwilling to cross. We can probably assume that they would not be okay with “livestream of grinding up babies and puppies and snorting them”.
If such a line exists, then I am saying nazi shit should be on the far side of the line.
If such a line does NOT exist, then I guess we’d have to have that discussion about why some things are unacceptable.
If the line is “only what is literally illegal” then that just punts editorial responsibility into a slower, less responsive system. It’s a cowardly shirking of responsibility.
As to how it relates:
That’s false. That’s not how you or anyone works. You are just as vulnerable to advertising as anyone else. And even if you were the platonic ideal of Strong Rational Man, many other people aren’t.
If we were talking about government censorship, which we were not, then that’s a slightly different conversation. The government has more power and is fundamentally different than a private blog platform or whatever.
Censorship isn’t the right word here, I would say. Censorship would make sense if this were a government that was being spoken about but it’s not.
I’ll take it from the perspective of myself, I run a Lemmy instance that is open for people to register for (after a brief application question and confirming your email address). If someone registered, and wanted to post Nazi-adjacent content I would remove it and ban them right away.
I would not be “censoring” your ability to see it. I would be saying “I do not want to host this content on the hardware that I am paying for and maintain”. Sure, you could argue that the side effect is that you’re not able to see it, but my intent isn’t “censorship”. If you want to see red and pink diamonds (just a completely abstract example), but I did not want to host it, then as the person who’s paying for the hardware then my want will always come first. That isn’t to say that others aren’t free (including yourself) to host said red and pink diamonds.
Censorship as a term makes sense for the government, because they have the power to enforce that everyone under their ruling must not host red and pink diamonds. I alone do not. Now, maybe almost every single Lemmy instance also doesn’t want to host red and pink diamonds - that would still not be censorship, that would just be most instance admins happen to align the same and are executing the same rules for their own sites.
Of course, replace myself with a private business owner, and Lemmy instances with something like a News subscription website, the meaning should still be the same. Hopefully my stance makes sense, I’m not writing this with the intent of “You’re wrong and I’m right” in the direct sense, but as a “I disagree, and here’s why”.
I did see your conversation with the other person here, and I agree that government censorship is bad (such as the weird concept of having to upload your ID to view porn), but I just don’t view this in the same way I suppose.
Obviously, Substack is within their rights to allow red and pink diamonds if they want, but if they didn’t then that would not be censorship (in my eyes, at least).
this ain’t about you
Exposure