“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.”

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    4·
    11 months ago

    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.

    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.

    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 feel those lessons inoculated me to a great degree from the effects of bullshit throughout life.

    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 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.

    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.