this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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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.”

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I don’t feel the same way about murder.

Why though?

I feel like you may be wanting to "debate" this, like until one of us "wins," which isn't my goal here. But if what I wrote before wasn't a good enough explanation to understand my point of view, here goes:

I don't feel the same way about murder because humans don't naturally tend to murder each other. It does happen in certain circumstances, but there's actually a massive resistance to it internally. Militaries have to do careful psychological training to make sure people are ready to kill because there's so much resistance. Most people tell each other what they think at least once a day, and communication networks for formally sharing each other's opinions get a lot of use. Most people go their whole lives without murdering one another other. Even in societies with permitted circumstances where people can kill each other and it's fine, it's a pretty rare thing.

In conclusion, using a communication network to share your ideas is a fairly natural thing. More so than murder.

Does that answer the question? Again, you don't have to agree with me on this point of view, but it's honestly a little hard for me to believe that my explanation wasn't a coherent explanation of what I think. If you're using "why" as code for "I want to argue, say something to 'prove' your side and convince me, let's keep going back and forth about it," I would prefer not to.

The Nazis were allowed to hold rallies and publish newspapers in Germany too. Thats how they became so powerful, and how they became powerful in the US too, that is until the bombing of pearl harbour and the government raiding the headquarters of The German American Bund and arresting their leaders. After which American Nazi’s lost all their influence. funny that. And then they’ve never been able to gain power in any country that has taken a strong stance against them. And you can use communism as an example too, communists were never able to gain influence in the west and especially America, despite how popular the idea was because of the active effort that went into stopping them.

I think we may just not be able to see eye to eye on this.

  • The German American Bund was prosecuted for breaking the law. Not for being Nazis, although I'm sure that the realpolitik of them getting extra heat because they were Nazis was a huge factor. We were mid World War 2 when this was happening.
  • Before and during (!) the war, they were "allowed" to operate, only prosecuted if they broke other unrelated laws, which they seemed to be doing.
  • ... as are modern neo-Nazi organizations.

(Side note, if that Wikipedia article is to be believed, the Black Panthers got treated way worse than the Bund. No one assassinated any Bund leaders like they did Fred Hampton, at least according to the article.)

Do you agree with what I just wrote so far? Agree that those three bullet points are factually accurate, at least? I feel like there's so much gulf between how we see these events that it's gonna be tough to find any type of common ground here.

Well I wouldnt know any off the top of my head, but a quick google shows plenty of results

https://news.sky.com/story/warwick-students-expelled-and-fined-after-racist-messages-11402539#:~:text=The Midlands university expels three,declaring love for Adolf Hitler.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/11/23/a-self-proclaimed-nazi-is-banned-from-his-college-campus-in-florida-but-allowed-to-remain-a-student/

(Edit: Ken Parker wasn't expelled. He was still allowed to attend online classes, and presumably to speak in those classes and all. They just kicked him off campus because of physical safety concerns, which sounds pretty fucking justified)

Those people are being ~~expelled~~ because of a wide variety of stuff, including Naziism, but also posting favorably about rape, holding assault rifles and saying he'll "shut down" other students, a lot more than just "being Nazis." It sounds like they were ~~expelled~~ for things I'm fully in favor of expelling people for. I'm talking about someone like Richard Spenser -- who says Nazi things but only rarely commits actual physical crimes (although often enough to put himself in trouble).

It looks from a quick search like there are multiple universities that have invited him to speak, so it'd be surprising if any student who emulated him was instantly expelled right after they invited him to speak. Do you have an example of something like that?

and again to use communism as a counter example, universities are where many people become socialist/communist because the organise there and can get the word out. If Nazis were allowed to do the same you would have much higher rates of kids becoming nazis.

I think we are simply too far apart in how we see the world to have this conversation. I'm getting sort of echoes of religious people who say "But if God isn't there to punish you what's to stop you doing rape and murder?"

Most people in my circle of people I know consider themselves "allowed" to start to follow Nazi ideology, if they want to. 0% of them do it because they're not fucking psychopaths (or even if they are, not to that level). In college, it was the same. Communism as an ideology (the Karl Marx version at least) doesn't involve exterminating any inferior races, so people are more into it. You really believe that if people were "allowed" to be Nazis, a lot of them would? The only reason communism gets more followers is communists are "allowed" and Nazis are not?

Let me ask you a 100% sincere question. Who is it that should decide what is "allowed" and not? The university administration? State or federal government? Student organization threatening boycotts if people start to "allow" the wrong types of ideologies? Who?

(Spent too much time on this, I'll write up a part 2 that includes replies to the rest of your message later on.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

The German American Bund, or the German American Federation (German: Amerikadeutscher Bund, Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, AV), was a German-American Nazi organization which was established in 1936 as a successor to the Friends of New Germany (FONG, FDND in German). The organization chose its new name in order to emphasize its American credentials after the press accused it of being unpatriotic. The Bund was allowed to consist only of American citizens of German descent. Its main goal was to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany.

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