“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
    3·
    7 months ago

    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:

    I don’t need protecting from speech/information. I’m perfectly capable and confident in my own views to deal with bullshit of all types.

    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.