Technology

59421 readers

2842 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

849

Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content (www.theverge.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

420 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

Sort of like Substack's servers then?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You think the platform is the widget, I think the content is the widget. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 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.