I hope Radley stays here. I think the Substack folks have their policy right.
To clarify, the Substack folks almost certainly don't believe that porn is less acceptable than Nazis. The problem, as anyone who works for a site that allows photo sharing will tell you, (even setting aside the fact that Stripe, their payments provider, won't support sites that allow porn) is that hosting porn requires significant cost investments (in both systems and personnel) to make sure that you're not allowing porn featuring underage participants or porn posted without full consent of all parties involved.
One of the things that really annoyed me about the Substack Against Nazis letter is that they wrote it in such a way to deliberately give the false impression that Substack's policy was aimed at censoring sex workers rather than prohibiting porn. Here is the relevant section Substack's actual policy (https://substack.com/content):
"Nudity, porn, erotica
We don’t allow porn or sexually exploitative content on Substack, including any visual depictions of sexual acts for the sole purpose of sexual gratification. We do allow depictions of nudity for artistic, journalistic, or related purposes, as well as erotic literature, however, we have a strict no nudity policy for profile images. We may hide or remove explicit content from Substack’s discovery features, including search and on Substack.com."
No idea if I’m in the majority on this, but I will continue to support you and the other writers I follow on Substack regardless of whether they switch platforms. While Substack is showing themselves to be supremely shitty, I fully appreciate the risk that changing platforms presents to writers’ income streams—and as much as I’d like to see everyone ditch this nazi bar, it’s more important to me to support independent journalism like this.
I support your choice to stay on Substack. I would understand your decision if you left and I agree with your/Popehat's objections to Substack's practices, but I don't think it's your responsibility to sacrifice part of your livelihood to police the platform. Maybe there's a point where it is your duty to leave, but I don't think we're there yet.
I wish we lived in a world where you were well supported here. I'll do my best to promote your investigations into the realities of policing when I encounter the masses of people who simply complain without thinking about real problems and solutions.
As is so common with free speech questions, this presents a wrenching choice among evils. I despise the views of white supremacists, just as I am sure the former ACLU did in Skokie, Illinois what seems like a cultural eternity ago.
I think censorship is almost always counterproductive, and free speech a vital value, even when we have to tolerate a stench. Take vile Trump. He was de-platformed on Facebook, Twitter, et al. Now he is back, arguably even stronger and, terrifyingly, is polling is if he might be our next president. So much for the salutary effects of deplatforming.
Yes, there are countries in world where censorship arguably works, but they are places where censorship of speech is enforced not just with deplatforming, but also with torture, imprisonment and exile. I'm talking about Russia and Alexei Navalny, for example. There are lots of other examples in China, Myanmar, etc. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting we go there.
Then there is the problem of moderating content. It's virtually impossible to do well. Even though doing it badly is probably a necessary evil. I used to spend a lot of time on Medium, and while I have views that are quite liberal, they are not really "Progressive." Medium removed a post of mine reciting what virtually everyone until yesterday considered to be objective facts (e.g., binary sex is a biological feature of virtually all fauna and flora, including apes known as humans). People are entitled to disagree that sex is a mere "social construct" or a spectrum, but I don't think I should have been erased for (what I thought to be) a factual statement. I don't think we want to follow Medium and the hard dogmatic Left down that rabbit hole.
So now we come to "Nazi." Clearly there are people who call themselves Nazi on Substack, about 16 out of 18000 accounts as I recall. I have read Jonathan Katz' Atlantic article and looked at a few hideous examples. There are doubtless many more accounts that espouse views that might be consistent with National Socialism, but do not explicitly self-identify as Naziism. Then there is a larger subset of accounts espousing far right views that offend both liberal and Progressive people. Finally, there is a very large group of accounts espousing more mainstream conservative views, whom many on the opposite side rhetorically refer to as "Nazis." Take De Santis, for example, who is often accused of being a "Nazi," All these groups blur into each other at the inner and outer edges--creating a content moderator's nightmare--because there always will be a plethora of voices clamoring for a broader definition of "Nazi."
I recently had a nasty exchange with a person on Substack whose handle is "War for the West." He was trying to make the case that the Jews deserve what they get. The Jews a century ago ran the Bolshevik movement, he argued, and thus were to blame for "provoking Hitler into war." He also agreed with many Leftists now that Jews in Israel are "settler colonialists" who had it coming regarding Hamas' terrorism on October 7. He just didn't like Jews. Is he a Nazi? Does his current agreement with the Far Left sanitize him? I hope not But should Substack de-platform him? I think that might elevate him. Better ignored.
What to do? I don't think Ken White offered a satisfactory answer. Instead, he snarked away the real issue. The real question is whether Substack is more like a neutral conduit as is the internet generally (which also profits from Nazi accounts) or a newspaper, which has an affirmative editorial (moderation on steroids) policy. I think it is significant that Substack's initial attraction to many fine writers was its lack of moderation (editorial) oversight.
Substack drew the line largely consistent with the First Amendment and with a desire not to become a Craigslist. I struggle to find a better way, even though I know this way is unsatisfactory.
I have yet to read anything from anyone who has a better idea; everyone just says the current approach is a bad one. Deplatforming people who call themselves Nazis still permits people with some Nazi views. And there are views that are not properly "Nazi" but are still abhorrent--Hindu fundamentalism is on the rise in Modi's India along with a resurgence in caste consciousness. Deplatform these hateful views? It never ends.
I do like your idea of Substack using any revenue from such accounts to affirmatively fight such views.
Can you point me to "The Internet's" financial statements so I can see how this company "profits" from nazis?
Of course you can't. Because companies profit, not an abstract entity like "The Internet". Companies which allow nazis to use their services usually face a huge customer backlash, just as SubStack is.
I'd also like to introduce you to the worlds of "stealing internet service", "putting another person's name on an account", and "burner phones". The user's identity isn't important in provisioning commodity services. It *is* important in establishing a monetizable brand.
Thank you for flagging this. Frontier communications terms of service provide in relevant part:
" Use of Service
All use of the Service must be lawful. You agree not to use or to allow others to use
the Service for illegal or inappropriate activities, including but not limited to: invading
another person’s privacy; unlawfully using, possessing, posting, transmitting or
disseminating obscene, profane or pornographic material; posting, transmitting,
distributing or disseminating content that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing,
libelous, slanderous, defamatory or otherwise offensive or objectionable. Customers
may not retransmit the Service or make the Service available to anyone outside the
premises (i.e. Wi-Fi or other methods of networking). Customers may not use the
Service to host any type of commercial server."
Though it says nothing about "Nazis," however that is defined, it does refer to communications that are "otherwise offensive or objectionable." Wow!!!!! According to whom?
This totally subjective standard could apply to literally ANY statement. Basically, an unfettered license to censor anything and to deny one's access to a basic necessity of modern life in the 21st Century for no legitimate reason. Frontier may find my pro-choice views to be "objectionable," for all I know. Fortunately, it does not seem to be enforced...until it is.
Time for me to contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Thank you, jk. I really mean that. This is Big Brotherism at its worst. Many parts of the country only offer one ISP. You have given me a new cause. I had no idea!
I used to be a public interest lawyer before I retired. Time to reactivate my California license.
Good luck with that. A private company may decide that advocating for genocide is objectionable to them, and decline to to business with you. Unless you're saying that nazis are a protected class of some sort.
Censorship is a two-way street. Anti-racism and LBGTQ rights may also be “offensive or objectionable” to someone who runs an ISP. Be careful what you ask for my friend.
(The you above is a rhetorical you, I'm not accusing you of being a nazi! I'm just pointing out the basic difference between state and private action in 1st Amendment law.)
Radley, I have no problem with you staying here. I'm not going to get mad at Substack for providing newsletter processing services to Nazis any more than I'd get mad at UPS for carrying their packages, ComEd for providing then with electricity, or CitiBank for cashing their checks. It would be different if "We carry Nazi messaging" was part of Substack's branding -- i.e. if they intentionally made themselves the Nazi message conduit. But that a few of their thousands of publishers have abhorrent views...doesn't seem worth getting too upset about. And I'm certain not going to get mad at their other publishers, like you, just for setting up an account.
I got a sinking feeling when you mentioned expired credit cards. So I checked, and I'm good for a year. (Whew!) I'm not unsubscribing as long as you're here.
I continue to be perplexed and dumbfounded over the lust and enthusiasm for Nazism. I have read about Nazism's history and watched numerous documentaries/historial fiction on Nazism. When stationed in Germany in the early sixties as a young Airman, the German youth my age I had become friends with were horrified even to discuss the Nazis. My barber, who had served on the Eastern Front (Russia) lamented how his country had been shamed through the ages because of the Nazi horrors. There is absolutely NOTHING about Nazism to be proud of.
Radley, as to your staying or leaving, I say "stay". I still relish reading your book on the warrior cops. If the more-reasoned among us bail, that will open the floodgates for all the nasties. There must be a sustained balance of thought. In the meantime, Substack should set its own standards and principles and then adhere to them. Not all speech should be free. Not all thoughts should be published. Period.
I too wonder why the emergence of pro-Nazi thinking. Or what passes for Nazi thinking. As a kid growing up in the sixties, many of our fathers served during WW II. Books and TV showed the horrors of Naziism even if our fathers preferred to not talk about the horrors of war. If in today's world, we have stopped teaching about the Third Reich, the Final Solution, etc. in schools and leave it to social media charlatans, the results can be predicted to be pretty bad.
Some folks romanticize and idealize the notion of fascism/aka Nazism all the while totally clueless as to its horror. Children were indoctrinated to SPY on their parents and their peers. Neighbors spied on neighbor. Relatives spied on relatives. The more insidious the report to the SS or the Gestapo, the more likelihood it was given. A culture of fear and distrust is corrosive, dehumanizing everyone. That is the social environment Trump wants. For his followers, discipline and punishment have the wider appeal. That is, of course, until that discipline and punishment is on their very own doorstep. The sinister darkness that envelopes those people cannot be dismissed as "the fringe", because no longer are they the fringe.
A lot goes into setting up a platform, making people aware of it, and then monetizing same. One of the benefits of platforms like substack is taking care of the details while also creating a town center like atmosphere where likeminded / interesting blogs from other folk can also be sought out easily. The switching costs are real and should not be underestimated.
I agree that Substack management is utterly and completely hypocritical re: what they do and do not censor on the platform. If pornography is objectionable then Nazis, White supremacists, and like trolls can be shown the door as well. What we have now is the worst of all worlds where the policy is entirely capricious as greed and the Overton window has shifted the debate enough among management to excuse inexcusable content.
AFAICT, right wingnut platforms are not wildly profitable. At the same time, enabling soft-core Nazi content helps Substack increase margins in the short term - which management benefits from. The longer-term risk to Substack is repelling normal people from subscribing / engaging just as Twitter is shedding engagement now that right-wing trolls are left free to run the asylum.
Constantin: See my comments elsewhere. Substack management isn't being hypocritical. They're almost certainly not prohibiting porn for editorial reasons but because of the costs involved (which are huge).
Monetizing Nazis, white supremacists, and like trolls is ok? There is a cost associated with that also, as Musk is discovering over at Twitter. Substack management was simply hoping no one notices that they’re happily catering to extremists - until it blew up in their faces.
1. It precludes the endless battles that would otherwise ensue over who should be able to use the platform. Do you ban folks who support Nazis but allow folks who support Hamas? How about folks who support the KKK? How about folks who support Russia's invasion of the Ukraine or China's repression of the Uighurs or Duterte assaults on civil liberties' in El Salvador?
2. I don't think deplatforming groups works; in fact, i think it's counterproductive in the long run, because the deplatformed just form their own spaces where they are less exposed to the rest of the world and become even more radicalized. Think the Trump example really proves this.
"With that in mind, we commit to keeping Substack wide open as a platform, accepting of views from across the political spectrum. We will resist public pressure to suppress voices that loud objectors deem unacceptable. If you look at Substack’s leaderboards today, you’ll see writers from the left and the right, the populist and the elite, the low-brow and the high-brow, the secular and the faithful, the activist and the academic. We’re proud of this range and strongly believe that this breadth strengthens the discourse.
Ultimately, we think the best content moderators are the people who control the communities on Substack: the writers themselves. On our platform, each publication is its own dominion, with readers and commenters who have gathered there through common interests. And readers, in turn, choose which writers to subscribe to and which communities to participate in. As the meta platform, we cannot presume to understand the particularities of any given community or to know what’s best for it. We think it’s better that the publisher, or a trusted member of that community, sets the tone and maintains the desired standard, and we will continue to build tools to help them to do that. Such an approach allows for more understanding and nuance than moderation via blunt enforcement from a global administrator.
Of course, there are limits. We do not allow porn on Substack, for example, or spam. We do not allow doxxing or harassment. We have content guidelines (which will evolve as Substack grows) with narrowly construed prohibitions with which writers must comply. But these guidelines are designed to protect the viability of the platform at the extremes, not act as a filter through which we see the world. There will always be many writers on Substack with whom we strongly disagree, and we will err on the side of respecting their right to express themselves, and readers’ right to decide for themselves what to read."
At Twitter, Substack, Nextdoor, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and everyone else in the news/social space, the MBAs keep looking for new scalable ways to drive engagement and usually it's via outrage, not substance. As you illustrated via the porn example, this debate is not about morals, it's about how to maximize profits.
The flowery Substack language you cited above is very similar to the stated goals by Musk and Co over at Twitter. Advertisers fled in response, they don't want their products to be associated with right-wingnut content, which Twitter is currently only too happy to endorse thanks to its new ownership.
The substack financing model is different, but subscribers can flee too. Granted, subscriptions here to support individual writers are stickier than Disney advertising over at Twitter but writers and consumers alike can decide that they don't want to be associated with platforms that serve as entry-points for radicalization.
True. Subscribers (and perhaps more importantly the writers who atract them in the first place) can flee. But I'm arguing they shouldn't.
Now if Substack begins to PROMOTE Nazi supporting content that would change my perspective. But promoting Nazi content is very different than simply allowing anyone who wants to use their tools to do so (which, of course, is something that Apple, Google, Microsoft, and virtually every other tech company already do).
And Substack ISN'T promoting the content of Nazi's supporters. The closest they have come to doing so is their featured interview with Richard Hanania, and I don't think that is all that close. I don't believe Substack is an "entry-point for radicalization" in any meaningful way. Hence my believe that this critique of Substack is misguided.
Coming from a different country with a different appreciation re: Nazis and the past may be coloring my perspective. Ditto an uncle of my grandmother getting murdered on day one of Hitlers ascendency to the top by NSDAP goons. One aspect of “never forget” is to recognize the on-ramps and to warn.
Normalizing Nazi content by not labeling it as unacceptable, to allow the monetization thereof is not that different than the old observation that if a Nazi sits down at a table of 9 and none stand up, then that the table now has 10 Nazis sitting around it.
Substack is here to make money and management wants to make money from everybody except the porn industry. I consider this attitude a business risk.
Deplatforming everyone you disagree with just causes them to claim martydom and radicalize even further. I would much rather have hate speech out in the open so I know who to keep a sharp eye on.
Don’t disagree re keeping a sharp eye and having stuff out in the open. But one doesn’t have to make money from it. Substack could demonetize hateful content.
And not on a moral basis but simply good business not to associate too closely with hate speech by making money from it.
I'm guessing the money Substack makes from the newsletters in question is trivial. I do think they're making a principled stand. Which doesn't means that they're right (although for the reasons explained above I think they are).
That said, I do think it would make sense for Substack to pledge any money they make from newsletters like this to something like GiveWell. Would certainly be supportive of that.
$2.5 million (per year) isn't trivial. I suspect that number has grown, too, since that figure was cited by The Washington Post two years ago. And we're not just talking about nazis. It's also harmful misinformation regarding vaccines, as well as transphobic rhetoric. Let's not forget the incels, who, among many vile things, promote violence against women. I think the only way to remove the nazis and their kind from this platform is for Substack to take Mr. Balko's suggestion to donate the revenue they make off of them. Giving the money to the non-profits and other organizations working to help the very people the nazis (and others) hate, could be the only way to get rid of them; the last thing they want is their money going toward those causes. But somehow, I don't see Substack jumping to do that because this entire situation is a win-win for them. They know damn well that users rely on the income this platform has provided and so this crappy conundrum is ours, not theirs.
Credit cards have been compelled or have voluntarily restricted payments to unsavory accounts including porn as well as guns. Is this the motivation of substack to refuse porn, the potential to lose credit card support?
It’s been asserted this is the reason. It’s likely because Stripe is their payments processor and they will shut off accounts that process payments for porn, cannabis, sex work, etc. Cannabis point-of-sale processors still play cat-and-mouse with them
I agree it's all hard choices here, but the first step is probably to start normalizing another platform.
With that in mind: If you start cross-posting this material to another subscription-blog platform with better terms, I will shift my subscription there and double the amount.
Any other readers here interested in making such a pledge? I expect that's the sort of thing needed to displace substack's centrality to the paid-blog ecosystem, and the market is after all just all of us.
I didn’t even know there were Nazis on Substack. Much like IRL, I understand that Nazis exist, but I don’t often run into them, since we just don’t travel in the same circles. Until such time as Substack starts suggesting Nazi bs to me, I’ll just keep reading what I like and supporting who I can.
I don't hold you or Ken White accountable for the fact that there are Nazis on Substack. Its not like you or Ken invited them. I do think the editorial hypocrisy of Substack is tough to swallow. Nazis good, sex bad? Huh?
Heck, I once discovered the people who moved in across the street from me in Los Alamos were just a little...different....when they put up a big Confederate battle flag on Martin Luther King Day. Talk about "there goes the neighborhood". We had little to say to each other after that. Still, when the Las Conchas fire brewed up and was headed our way, I raced over to brief them that we were about to see the shit hit the fan, so they better pack an emergency evacuation kit. We did have to evacuate.
As The Popehat notes, "...On Twitter, Nazis were constantly in my face...Here I generally only encounter them if I look for them or, very occasionally, if one wanders into my comments for me to block. You can publish here and comment here and never encounter Nazis stuff here. "
Indeed, I don't go looking for Nazis and only found out about the ones in question after reading Ken's essay (and now yours). As you say, it might be both economically painful and a logistical pain in the ass to leave Substack for elsewhere. Likewise, for readers, having to chase down various media sources to keep track of our favorite authors can be a pain in the ass.
Fine with me if you stay here. For that matter, I tend to be a First Amendment purist and while I don't have much use for Nazis, I worry about the slippery slope of today's cancel culture, book banning, puritan-thinking, and censorship. With all due respect to Pastor Niemoller, first they came for the Nazis, and I said nothing. Then they came for the critics of Israel and I said nothing. Then they came for the critics of the Palestinians, and I said nothing. Then they came for the gun nuts.....well, you know the rest. We already see the do-gooders in California banning gun advertising to minors, forcing even "mom and apple pie" shooting sports programs for Boy Scouts to have to file lawsuits.
I still think it is the guy in the mirror's job to know Nazis when we see them. Not someone else's job. And the proper way to deal with Nazis can be found in that movie The Blues Brothers.
If the excuse from Substack is that they don’t allow perfectly legal 1st Amendment protected sex work to be monetized because of Stripe, why isn’t Stripe being pressured, too.
It's a fair question. But as an fyi Stripe's policy is almost certainly based on the fact that there are incredibly high fraud and charge back rates in the porn hosting world; in other words, it's a policy that is probably based on economics not morals.
Also, as I pointed out in a different comment, there are significant costs in terms of both systems and personnel that Substack would have to take on if it were to allow porn to insure it didn't include underage participants and was fully consensual for all involved.
Could be. Although I suspect that folks who actually subscribe to Nazi sympathizer newsletters want to support the people behind it. While folks who view porn, just want the content. Also, I'm guessing there aren't 15 year old boys using their parents' credit cards for Nazi content.
I have said this before - I believe I receive just about zero value as a reader from the Substack “platform”, particularly because I just read the emails and never open the app (voluntarily). It is one of the many tech-era “things consumers don’t need and never needed”.
But of course you’re correct about the inertia issue, and obviously writers get real value from it. Something tells me that Substack will not survive this dustup without fixing this problem - whenever shitty content gets posted, it will spread and a downward spiral will ensue.
Nonetheless, just tell me where to send my bargain level number of dollars per month, as necessary.
I hope Radley stays here. I think the Substack folks have their policy right.
To clarify, the Substack folks almost certainly don't believe that porn is less acceptable than Nazis. The problem, as anyone who works for a site that allows photo sharing will tell you, (even setting aside the fact that Stripe, their payments provider, won't support sites that allow porn) is that hosting porn requires significant cost investments (in both systems and personnel) to make sure that you're not allowing porn featuring underage participants or porn posted without full consent of all parties involved.
One of the things that really annoyed me about the Substack Against Nazis letter is that they wrote it in such a way to deliberately give the false impression that Substack's policy was aimed at censoring sex workers rather than prohibiting porn. Here is the relevant section Substack's actual policy (https://substack.com/content):
"Nudity, porn, erotica
We don’t allow porn or sexually exploitative content on Substack, including any visual depictions of sexual acts for the sole purpose of sexual gratification. We do allow depictions of nudity for artistic, journalistic, or related purposes, as well as erotic literature, however, we have a strict no nudity policy for profile images. We may hide or remove explicit content from Substack’s discovery features, including search and on Substack.com."
No idea if I’m in the majority on this, but I will continue to support you and the other writers I follow on Substack regardless of whether they switch platforms. While Substack is showing themselves to be supremely shitty, I fully appreciate the risk that changing platforms presents to writers’ income streams—and as much as I’d like to see everyone ditch this nazi bar, it’s more important to me to support independent journalism like this.
I support your choice to stay on Substack. I would understand your decision if you left and I agree with your/Popehat's objections to Substack's practices, but I don't think it's your responsibility to sacrifice part of your livelihood to police the platform. Maybe there's a point where it is your duty to leave, but I don't think we're there yet.
I wish we lived in a world where you were well supported here. I'll do my best to promote your investigations into the realities of policing when I encounter the masses of people who simply complain without thinking about real problems and solutions.
As is so common with free speech questions, this presents a wrenching choice among evils. I despise the views of white supremacists, just as I am sure the former ACLU did in Skokie, Illinois what seems like a cultural eternity ago.
I think censorship is almost always counterproductive, and free speech a vital value, even when we have to tolerate a stench. Take vile Trump. He was de-platformed on Facebook, Twitter, et al. Now he is back, arguably even stronger and, terrifyingly, is polling is if he might be our next president. So much for the salutary effects of deplatforming.
Yes, there are countries in world where censorship arguably works, but they are places where censorship of speech is enforced not just with deplatforming, but also with torture, imprisonment and exile. I'm talking about Russia and Alexei Navalny, for example. There are lots of other examples in China, Myanmar, etc. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting we go there.
Then there is the problem of moderating content. It's virtually impossible to do well. Even though doing it badly is probably a necessary evil. I used to spend a lot of time on Medium, and while I have views that are quite liberal, they are not really "Progressive." Medium removed a post of mine reciting what virtually everyone until yesterday considered to be objective facts (e.g., binary sex is a biological feature of virtually all fauna and flora, including apes known as humans). People are entitled to disagree that sex is a mere "social construct" or a spectrum, but I don't think I should have been erased for (what I thought to be) a factual statement. I don't think we want to follow Medium and the hard dogmatic Left down that rabbit hole.
So now we come to "Nazi." Clearly there are people who call themselves Nazi on Substack, about 16 out of 18000 accounts as I recall. I have read Jonathan Katz' Atlantic article and looked at a few hideous examples. There are doubtless many more accounts that espouse views that might be consistent with National Socialism, but do not explicitly self-identify as Naziism. Then there is a larger subset of accounts espousing far right views that offend both liberal and Progressive people. Finally, there is a very large group of accounts espousing more mainstream conservative views, whom many on the opposite side rhetorically refer to as "Nazis." Take De Santis, for example, who is often accused of being a "Nazi," All these groups blur into each other at the inner and outer edges--creating a content moderator's nightmare--because there always will be a plethora of voices clamoring for a broader definition of "Nazi."
I recently had a nasty exchange with a person on Substack whose handle is "War for the West." He was trying to make the case that the Jews deserve what they get. The Jews a century ago ran the Bolshevik movement, he argued, and thus were to blame for "provoking Hitler into war." He also agreed with many Leftists now that Jews in Israel are "settler colonialists" who had it coming regarding Hamas' terrorism on October 7. He just didn't like Jews. Is he a Nazi? Does his current agreement with the Far Left sanitize him? I hope not But should Substack de-platform him? I think that might elevate him. Better ignored.
What to do? I don't think Ken White offered a satisfactory answer. Instead, he snarked away the real issue. The real question is whether Substack is more like a neutral conduit as is the internet generally (which also profits from Nazi accounts) or a newspaper, which has an affirmative editorial (moderation on steroids) policy. I think it is significant that Substack's initial attraction to many fine writers was its lack of moderation (editorial) oversight.
Substack drew the line largely consistent with the First Amendment and with a desire not to become a Craigslist. I struggle to find a better way, even though I know this way is unsatisfactory.
I have yet to read anything from anyone who has a better idea; everyone just says the current approach is a bad one. Deplatforming people who call themselves Nazis still permits people with some Nazi views. And there are views that are not properly "Nazi" but are still abhorrent--Hindu fundamentalism is on the rise in Modi's India along with a resurgence in caste consciousness. Deplatform these hateful views? It never ends.
I do like your idea of Substack using any revenue from such accounts to affirmatively fight such views.
Can you point me to "The Internet's" financial statements so I can see how this company "profits" from nazis?
Of course you can't. Because companies profit, not an abstract entity like "The Internet". Companies which allow nazis to use their services usually face a huge customer backlash, just as SubStack is.
Even Nazis use an ISP. It’s self evident. Otherwise how can they maintain a Substack account?
Please take a look at your isp's terms of service.
I'd also like to introduce you to the worlds of "stealing internet service", "putting another person's name on an account", and "burner phones". The user's identity isn't important in provisioning commodity services. It *is* important in establishing a monetizable brand.
If Trump is re-elected and weaponizes the federal government against dissent, burner phones may prove essential.
and monetizable brands moot.
Thank you for flagging this. Frontier communications terms of service provide in relevant part:
" Use of Service
All use of the Service must be lawful. You agree not to use or to allow others to use
the Service for illegal or inappropriate activities, including but not limited to: invading
another person’s privacy; unlawfully using, possessing, posting, transmitting or
disseminating obscene, profane or pornographic material; posting, transmitting,
distributing or disseminating content that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing,
libelous, slanderous, defamatory or otherwise offensive or objectionable. Customers
may not retransmit the Service or make the Service available to anyone outside the
premises (i.e. Wi-Fi or other methods of networking). Customers may not use the
Service to host any type of commercial server."
Though it says nothing about "Nazis," however that is defined, it does refer to communications that are "otherwise offensive or objectionable." Wow!!!!! According to whom?
This totally subjective standard could apply to literally ANY statement. Basically, an unfettered license to censor anything and to deny one's access to a basic necessity of modern life in the 21st Century for no legitimate reason. Frontier may find my pro-choice views to be "objectionable," for all I know. Fortunately, it does not seem to be enforced...until it is.
Time for me to contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Thank you, jk. I really mean that. This is Big Brotherism at its worst. Many parts of the country only offer one ISP. You have given me a new cause. I had no idea!
I used to be a public interest lawyer before I retired. Time to reactivate my California license.
You are the best!
Good luck with that. A private company may decide that advocating for genocide is objectionable to them, and decline to to business with you. Unless you're saying that nazis are a protected class of some sort.
Censorship is a two-way street. Anti-racism and LBGTQ rights may also be “offensive or objectionable” to someone who runs an ISP. Be careful what you ask for my friend.
(The you above is a rhetorical you, I'm not accusing you of being a nazi! I'm just pointing out the basic difference between state and private action in 1st Amendment law.)
Radley, I have no problem with you staying here. I'm not going to get mad at Substack for providing newsletter processing services to Nazis any more than I'd get mad at UPS for carrying their packages, ComEd for providing then with electricity, or CitiBank for cashing their checks. It would be different if "We carry Nazi messaging" was part of Substack's branding -- i.e. if they intentionally made themselves the Nazi message conduit. But that a few of their thousands of publishers have abhorrent views...doesn't seem worth getting too upset about. And I'm certain not going to get mad at their other publishers, like you, just for setting up an account.
I got a sinking feeling when you mentioned expired credit cards. So I checked, and I'm good for a year. (Whew!) I'm not unsubscribing as long as you're here.
I continue to be perplexed and dumbfounded over the lust and enthusiasm for Nazism. I have read about Nazism's history and watched numerous documentaries/historial fiction on Nazism. When stationed in Germany in the early sixties as a young Airman, the German youth my age I had become friends with were horrified even to discuss the Nazis. My barber, who had served on the Eastern Front (Russia) lamented how his country had been shamed through the ages because of the Nazi horrors. There is absolutely NOTHING about Nazism to be proud of.
Radley, as to your staying or leaving, I say "stay". I still relish reading your book on the warrior cops. If the more-reasoned among us bail, that will open the floodgates for all the nasties. There must be a sustained balance of thought. In the meantime, Substack should set its own standards and principles and then adhere to them. Not all speech should be free. Not all thoughts should be published. Period.
I too wonder why the emergence of pro-Nazi thinking. Or what passes for Nazi thinking. As a kid growing up in the sixties, many of our fathers served during WW II. Books and TV showed the horrors of Naziism even if our fathers preferred to not talk about the horrors of war. If in today's world, we have stopped teaching about the Third Reich, the Final Solution, etc. in schools and leave it to social media charlatans, the results can be predicted to be pretty bad.
Some folks romanticize and idealize the notion of fascism/aka Nazism all the while totally clueless as to its horror. Children were indoctrinated to SPY on their parents and their peers. Neighbors spied on neighbor. Relatives spied on relatives. The more insidious the report to the SS or the Gestapo, the more likelihood it was given. A culture of fear and distrust is corrosive, dehumanizing everyone. That is the social environment Trump wants. For his followers, discipline and punishment have the wider appeal. That is, of course, until that discipline and punishment is on their very own doorstep. The sinister darkness that envelopes those people cannot be dismissed as "the fringe", because no longer are they the fringe.
A lot goes into setting up a platform, making people aware of it, and then monetizing same. One of the benefits of platforms like substack is taking care of the details while also creating a town center like atmosphere where likeminded / interesting blogs from other folk can also be sought out easily. The switching costs are real and should not be underestimated.
I agree that Substack management is utterly and completely hypocritical re: what they do and do not censor on the platform. If pornography is objectionable then Nazis, White supremacists, and like trolls can be shown the door as well. What we have now is the worst of all worlds where the policy is entirely capricious as greed and the Overton window has shifted the debate enough among management to excuse inexcusable content.
AFAICT, right wingnut platforms are not wildly profitable. At the same time, enabling soft-core Nazi content helps Substack increase margins in the short term - which management benefits from. The longer-term risk to Substack is repelling normal people from subscribing / engaging just as Twitter is shedding engagement now that right-wing trolls are left free to run the asylum.
Constantin: See my comments elsewhere. Substack management isn't being hypocritical. They're almost certainly not prohibiting porn for editorial reasons but because of the costs involved (which are huge).
Monetizing Nazis, white supremacists, and like trolls is ok? There is a cost associated with that also, as Musk is discovering over at Twitter. Substack management was simply hoping no one notices that they’re happily catering to extremists - until it blew up in their faces.
Substack has been clear and upfront from the beginning about the fact that they weren't going to moderate based on political ideology. See this post
https://on.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-moderation from a full three years ago where they layed out their philosophy (have quoted the key paragaphs below).
I think it's the right policy for two reasons:
1. It precludes the endless battles that would otherwise ensue over who should be able to use the platform. Do you ban folks who support Nazis but allow folks who support Hamas? How about folks who support the KKK? How about folks who support Russia's invasion of the Ukraine or China's repression of the Uighurs or Duterte assaults on civil liberties' in El Salvador?
2. I don't think deplatforming groups works; in fact, i think it's counterproductive in the long run, because the deplatformed just form their own spaces where they are less exposed to the rest of the world and become even more radicalized. Think the Trump example really proves this.
--------------------------
https://on.substack.com/p/substacks-view-of-content-moderation
"With that in mind, we commit to keeping Substack wide open as a platform, accepting of views from across the political spectrum. We will resist public pressure to suppress voices that loud objectors deem unacceptable. If you look at Substack’s leaderboards today, you’ll see writers from the left and the right, the populist and the elite, the low-brow and the high-brow, the secular and the faithful, the activist and the academic. We’re proud of this range and strongly believe that this breadth strengthens the discourse.
Ultimately, we think the best content moderators are the people who control the communities on Substack: the writers themselves. On our platform, each publication is its own dominion, with readers and commenters who have gathered there through common interests. And readers, in turn, choose which writers to subscribe to and which communities to participate in. As the meta platform, we cannot presume to understand the particularities of any given community or to know what’s best for it. We think it’s better that the publisher, or a trusted member of that community, sets the tone and maintains the desired standard, and we will continue to build tools to help them to do that. Such an approach allows for more understanding and nuance than moderation via blunt enforcement from a global administrator.
Of course, there are limits. We do not allow porn on Substack, for example, or spam. We do not allow doxxing or harassment. We have content guidelines (which will evolve as Substack grows) with narrowly construed prohibitions with which writers must comply. But these guidelines are designed to protect the viability of the platform at the extremes, not act as a filter through which we see the world. There will always be many writers on Substack with whom we strongly disagree, and we will err on the side of respecting their right to express themselves, and readers’ right to decide for themselves what to read."
At Twitter, Substack, Nextdoor, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and everyone else in the news/social space, the MBAs keep looking for new scalable ways to drive engagement and usually it's via outrage, not substance. As you illustrated via the porn example, this debate is not about morals, it's about how to maximize profits.
The flowery Substack language you cited above is very similar to the stated goals by Musk and Co over at Twitter. Advertisers fled in response, they don't want their products to be associated with right-wingnut content, which Twitter is currently only too happy to endorse thanks to its new ownership.
The substack financing model is different, but subscribers can flee too. Granted, subscriptions here to support individual writers are stickier than Disney advertising over at Twitter but writers and consumers alike can decide that they don't want to be associated with platforms that serve as entry-points for radicalization.
True. Subscribers (and perhaps more importantly the writers who atract them in the first place) can flee. But I'm arguing they shouldn't.
Now if Substack begins to PROMOTE Nazi supporting content that would change my perspective. But promoting Nazi content is very different than simply allowing anyone who wants to use their tools to do so (which, of course, is something that Apple, Google, Microsoft, and virtually every other tech company already do).
And Substack ISN'T promoting the content of Nazi's supporters. The closest they have come to doing so is their featured interview with Richard Hanania, and I don't think that is all that close. I don't believe Substack is an "entry-point for radicalization" in any meaningful way. Hence my believe that this critique of Substack is misguided.
Coming from a different country with a different appreciation re: Nazis and the past may be coloring my perspective. Ditto an uncle of my grandmother getting murdered on day one of Hitlers ascendency to the top by NSDAP goons. One aspect of “never forget” is to recognize the on-ramps and to warn.
Normalizing Nazi content by not labeling it as unacceptable, to allow the monetization thereof is not that different than the old observation that if a Nazi sits down at a table of 9 and none stand up, then that the table now has 10 Nazis sitting around it.
Substack is here to make money and management wants to make money from everybody except the porn industry. I consider this attitude a business risk.
Deplatforming everyone you disagree with just causes them to claim martydom and radicalize even further. I would much rather have hate speech out in the open so I know who to keep a sharp eye on.
Don’t disagree re keeping a sharp eye and having stuff out in the open. But one doesn’t have to make money from it. Substack could demonetize hateful content.
And not on a moral basis but simply good business not to associate too closely with hate speech by making money from it.
I'm guessing the money Substack makes from the newsletters in question is trivial. I do think they're making a principled stand. Which doesn't means that they're right (although for the reasons explained above I think they are).
That said, I do think it would make sense for Substack to pledge any money they make from newsletters like this to something like GiveWell. Would certainly be supportive of that.
$2.5 million (per year) isn't trivial. I suspect that number has grown, too, since that figure was cited by The Washington Post two years ago. And we're not just talking about nazis. It's also harmful misinformation regarding vaccines, as well as transphobic rhetoric. Let's not forget the incels, who, among many vile things, promote violence against women. I think the only way to remove the nazis and their kind from this platform is for Substack to take Mr. Balko's suggestion to donate the revenue they make off of them. Giving the money to the non-profits and other organizations working to help the very people the nazis (and others) hate, could be the only way to get rid of them; the last thing they want is their money going toward those causes. But somehow, I don't see Substack jumping to do that because this entire situation is a win-win for them. They know damn well that users rely on the income this platform has provided and so this crappy conundrum is ours, not theirs.
Credit cards have been compelled or have voluntarily restricted payments to unsavory accounts including porn as well as guns. Is this the motivation of substack to refuse porn, the potential to lose credit card support?
It’s been asserted this is the reason. It’s likely because Stripe is their payments processor and they will shut off accounts that process payments for porn, cannabis, sex work, etc. Cannabis point-of-sale processors still play cat-and-mouse with them
I agree it's all hard choices here, but the first step is probably to start normalizing another platform.
With that in mind: If you start cross-posting this material to another subscription-blog platform with better terms, I will shift my subscription there and double the amount.
Any other readers here interested in making such a pledge? I expect that's the sort of thing needed to displace substack's centrality to the paid-blog ecosystem, and the market is after all just all of us.
I didn’t even know there were Nazis on Substack. Much like IRL, I understand that Nazis exist, but I don’t often run into them, since we just don’t travel in the same circles. Until such time as Substack starts suggesting Nazi bs to me, I’ll just keep reading what I like and supporting who I can.
I don't hold you or Ken White accountable for the fact that there are Nazis on Substack. Its not like you or Ken invited them. I do think the editorial hypocrisy of Substack is tough to swallow. Nazis good, sex bad? Huh?
Heck, I once discovered the people who moved in across the street from me in Los Alamos were just a little...different....when they put up a big Confederate battle flag on Martin Luther King Day. Talk about "there goes the neighborhood". We had little to say to each other after that. Still, when the Las Conchas fire brewed up and was headed our way, I raced over to brief them that we were about to see the shit hit the fan, so they better pack an emergency evacuation kit. We did have to evacuate.
As The Popehat notes, "...On Twitter, Nazis were constantly in my face...Here I generally only encounter them if I look for them or, very occasionally, if one wanders into my comments for me to block. You can publish here and comment here and never encounter Nazis stuff here. "
Indeed, I don't go looking for Nazis and only found out about the ones in question after reading Ken's essay (and now yours). As you say, it might be both economically painful and a logistical pain in the ass to leave Substack for elsewhere. Likewise, for readers, having to chase down various media sources to keep track of our favorite authors can be a pain in the ass.
Fine with me if you stay here. For that matter, I tend to be a First Amendment purist and while I don't have much use for Nazis, I worry about the slippery slope of today's cancel culture, book banning, puritan-thinking, and censorship. With all due respect to Pastor Niemoller, first they came for the Nazis, and I said nothing. Then they came for the critics of Israel and I said nothing. Then they came for the critics of the Palestinians, and I said nothing. Then they came for the gun nuts.....well, you know the rest. We already see the do-gooders in California banning gun advertising to minors, forcing even "mom and apple pie" shooting sports programs for Boy Scouts to have to file lawsuits.
I still think it is the guy in the mirror's job to know Nazis when we see them. Not someone else's job. And the proper way to deal with Nazis can be found in that movie The Blues Brothers.
If the excuse from Substack is that they don’t allow perfectly legal 1st Amendment protected sex work to be monetized because of Stripe, why isn’t Stripe being pressured, too.
It's a fair question. But as an fyi Stripe's policy is almost certainly based on the fact that there are incredibly high fraud and charge back rates in the porn hosting world; in other words, it's a policy that is probably based on economics not morals.
Also, as I pointed out in a different comment, there are significant costs in terms of both systems and personnel that Substack would have to take on if it were to allow porn to insure it didn't include underage participants and was fully consensual for all involved.
I’m going to bet if you cohorted the nazi audience you’d see a lot of the same problems
Could be. Although I suspect that folks who actually subscribe to Nazi sympathizer newsletters want to support the people behind it. While folks who view porn, just want the content. Also, I'm guessing there aren't 15 year old boys using their parents' credit cards for Nazi content.
I have said this before - I believe I receive just about zero value as a reader from the Substack “platform”, particularly because I just read the emails and never open the app (voluntarily). It is one of the many tech-era “things consumers don’t need and never needed”.
But of course you’re correct about the inertia issue, and obviously writers get real value from it. Something tells me that Substack will not survive this dustup without fixing this problem - whenever shitty content gets posted, it will spread and a downward spiral will ensue.
Nonetheless, just tell me where to send my bargain level number of dollars per month, as necessary.
Nazi’s surround us everyday, most of us are adults and know how to deal. You have my support.
I support you, Radley, and am glad to keep my subscription up. Keep up the good work.