It doesn’t escape notice that the hit piece against Substack mentioned in both links in this comment thread came from the NYT, an organization that slanted news in favor of actual Nazis running up to the war [1] and has recently rehired a pro-Hitler reporter [2].
Having read many thousands of Substack articles, I’ve seen recommended content from a wide swath of the political spectrum from many countries but never anything Nazi related.
Given the history of Platformer, it's likely they are trying to stir up and monetize outrage. It’s also worth pointing out that Casey is currently working for the NYT as host on the Hard Fork podcast. With the on-going collaboration, this attack on Substack seems incredibly disingenuous and hypocritical.
Something I'm a bit unclear on is why people are using this thing in the _first_ place? My impression is that it's just a blog with a paywall, which can be had from any number of providers or self-hosted fairly easily. Am I missing something about what it does here? Like, I'd have expected that leaving would be pretty easy.
The title of this submission (“Platformer announces it’s leaving Substack”) isn’t an accurate characterization. In the linked article, behind the paywall, Casey Newton writes:
> It is our hope that Substack will reverse course and remove all pro-Nazi material under its existing anti-hate policies. If it chooses not to, we will plan to leave the platform.
tldr: They're trying to pressure SubStack into changing their tune on content moderation, and are meeting them today. Suspect this is just a play to push leadership via PR.
If Substack really wants to be the Nazi bar [1], then that is their prerogative. But if some of their writers don't wish to be patrons of the Nazi bar, then it is their prerogative to urge Substack's leadership to change their minds.
[1] The bartender: "You didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them... You have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too. And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down." https://werd.io/2023/leaving-the-nazi-bar
How is this different from Subsack saying they're pure from degeneracy because they don't allow sex worker blogs? Their free speech schtick is bullshit*.
It's not that nazi ideas can't be allowed to exist (you don't hear me calling for 4chan to not exist because of /pol/ for example), but declining to help monetize them is also free speech.
Free speech has always been about more than what just the government must tolerate. Free speech is also a broader philosophy, that the best way to counter bad ideas is to let those ideas be aired freely and confronted freely by better ideas. Locking bad ideas in a cage will only cause them to rot and fester further.
Ideas don't confront each other, people do. And when the people representing one set of ideas refuse to engage in good faith and instead promote discrimination based on race, gender, and sexuality, they should lose the privilege to have those ideas amplified. 10 years ago it was not controversial that you should become a social pariah for broadcasting hate speech. This whole situation would be utterly juvenile and ridiculous if it wasn't so harmful.
> And when the people representing one set of ideas refuse to engage in good faith
How can you possibly know that, if you prevent the people in question from speaking? Or are you extrapolating the behavior of all members of a group from that of a potentially non-representative sample?
Anyway, even if someone engages in bad faith, it can still be valuable to let them demonstrate that bad faith to the world. Not in every community or platform, necessarily, but somewhere. (Substack, unlike most social media, has no algorithmic feed; you see content only from authors you choose to visit or follow. So you won't be bothered by bigots there unless you choose to seek them out.)
> discrimination based on race, gender, and sexuality,
> hate speech
These terms are often used with many different meanings, can you define them as you are using them here?
> even if someone engages in bad faith, it can still be valuable to let them demonstrate that bad faith to the world.
I think we've heard enough from them. The talking points are tired, the joke is always the same joke. There's nothing to learn here. And besides that, back when it was pretty normal not to indulge this offensive clown show, we had no issue discussing issues of hate speech without allowing it to proliferate. Imagine that.
> These terms are often used with many different meanings, can you define them as you are using them here?
This is exactly what I mean by bad faith. Come on, man. Every single time an advocate for platforming hate speech gets into a debate, they immediately run to hide in a rhetorical quagmire, hoping someone will follow them into it. Find a bigger idiot, I don't play those games.
You linked a list of their most popular articles, which happen to be the ones about Twitter. If you sort by date instead, you'll see your characterization of the newsletter is false.
I would bet that half of those new articles contain digs at Musk and Twitter. Zoe is even turning her Musk hating Platformer articles and her Twitter inside source into a full book. Look for a glowing review from TL to return the favor.
Having read many thousands of Substack articles, I’ve seen recommended content from a wide swath of the political spectrum from many countries but never anything Nazi related.
Given the history of Platformer, it's likely they are trying to stir up and monetize outrage. It’s also worth pointing out that Casey is currently working for the NYT as host on the Hard Fork podcast. With the on-going collaboration, this attack on Substack seems incredibly disingenuous and hypocritical.
1) https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/history/articles/new-york...
2) https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israeli-envoy-b...