“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.”

  • Flying SquidEnglish
    6•11 months ago

    That’s splitting hairs. Salespeople who work on commission are keeping an amount of what they make for the company, but I doubt many people would claim they aren’t being paid to sell a product.

    • be_excellent_to_each_other
      3•11 months ago

      They are being paid by subscribers, not by substack. I am not on substack’s side here, but that detail seems quite relevant if we’re interested in painting an accurate picture of what’s going on.

      If they were putting Nazi content on substack and no individuals were subscribing to read it, they would be earning 0.

      Substack is profiting from those same subscribers, no doubt.

      • Flying SquidEnglish
        7•11 months ago

        They are being paid by subscribers, not by substack.

        Again- If you sold widgets door-to-door for a 20% commission, would you say you were being paid by the people who buy the widgets? I doubt many would.

        • be_excellent_to_each_other
          0•11 months ago

          In that case I’d be selling something made by the entity giving me commission - what people want and pay for is something made by someone other than me. In this case the people creating the content are the same people drawing the subscribers, so it’s more accurate to say substack takes a cut of their subscription income than to say substack pays them.

          If I stop selling widgets the company still has the exact same widgets and can get anyone else to sell them. If a renowned nazi writer (bleh) takes their content to another platform, substack no longer has that content (or the author’s presence on their platform) to profit from.

          • Flying SquidEnglish
            4•11 months ago

            what people want and pay for is something made by someone other than me.

            Sort of like Substack’s servers then?

              • Flying SquidEnglish
                1•11 months ago

                Your words:

                what people want and pay for is something made by someone other than me.

                They’re paying for the convenience of using Substack’s servers. The Nazi could be spreading their bigotry through direct email, for example, but that is not a profit-generating enterprise. Substack, however, is a profit-generating enterprise. Notice that they said they aren’t even willing to demonetize Nazi accounts. They are happy to make a profit from Nazi content. And for some reason, you think that is defensible.