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] 33 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Another day of thanking ~~god~~ the devs for the decentralized Fediverse and Lemmy 🙏😔

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago

Money is the only vote that matters. Avoid the Nazi bar. Don't give them ad revenue or search engine relevance (for what that's worth anymore).

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Free speech POV aside, Substack is running a business as a publisher of content. They sell advertising space. You know what de values your advertising space? Unsafe hateful content. Advertisers care about "brand safety" in terms of what their ads appear next to. You can't run a good advertising sales business if the advertisers don't have guarantees on brand safety.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago (17 children)

What a stupid argument. Imagine replacing "nazis" with "pedophiles" in her answer

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago

This is plainly irresponsible.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Gen Z needs to understand the historical lesson that the Blues Brothers taught those before them. Illinois Nazis exist, and some days they demonstrate, as per their right to freedom of speech - but this is as much as an opportunity to humiliate them and openly critique the mindset as anyone else. Dark little underground communities flourish behind closed doors.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Here's a Wired article featuring four good alternatives to Substack.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago

Tell me you are a fascist WO telling me you are a fascist.. 🤣🤣..

[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago

TIL that Substack is apparently a bunch of crypto-fascists who expect people to believe they don't support Nazis, they just give them money and a place at their table to talk about it.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago

And then people wonder why we're so scared of Facebook if the fediverse is "supposed to be open".

The answer is literally in front of you, people!

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago

Translated: McKenzie just wants the sweet money and is trying to gaslight us into thinking platforming nazis is ok.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This tracks with my previous attempts at reporting that Sinfest guy. Posts hundreds of comics that blatantly break multiple official substack content guidelines and I get the effective equivalent of a promise for "action" combined with a dismissive eye roll. They completely ignored my follow-up email detailing the complete lack of action and the dozen or so new content guideline violations.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago (9 children)

“Yeah they’re nazis but hey, they bring the money in. Why should I ban them?”

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Jesus Christ censorship has become such a meaningless word now.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago

we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.

Happy Opposite Day, everyone! 🥳

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I see literalnazis.com is available for cheap if anybody want to 302 that to substack.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views.

"But we'll gladly host those views on our platform, run ads alongside them, and profit from them."

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Only thing I can recommend is finding their advertisers and letting them know what they're advertising on

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

If a Nazi has a large subscription following than Substack would be directly profiting from Nazi content.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

Are Musky and Hamish McKenzie’s friends because that sound like the same bullshit he would say. Also, hasn't deplatforming actually been shown to work?

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

Cool... so they now facilitate and directly benefit from Nazi activity. Sounds great when you put it like that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

For anyone who remembers the interview the CEO did with the Verge back when they launched Notes, this isn't surprising at all.

You can see a transcript here. The relevant section can be found by searching all brown people are animals or more specifically just animals and reading on from there.

I'm not sure if the video footage of the interview is still available, but it's even worse because you can see that the CEO is completely lost when talking about the idea of moderating anything and basically shuts down because they have nothing to say all while the interview is politely berating them about how they're obviously failing a litmus test.

Do note that above the point where "animals" occurs is some post-hoc context provided by the interviewer (perhaps why the video is no longer easily available?) where they point out that the question they asked and the response they got wasn't exactly as extreme as it first appeared. But they also point out that it's still very notable despite the slightly mitigating correction and I'd agree entirely, especially if you watch(ed) the video and clocked the CEO's demeanor and lack of any intelligent thought on the issue.

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