[egourlao]

> Substack is, just as a reminder, a political project made by extremists with a goal of normalizing a radical, hateful agenda by co-opting well-intentioned creators' work in service of cross-promoting attacks on the vulnerable. You don't have to take my word for it; Substack's CEO explicitly said they won't ban someone who is explicitly spouting hate, and when confronted with the rampant white supremacist propaganda that they are profiting from on their site, they took down... four of the Nazis. Four.

I understand that content moderation online is a nuanced topic, but… my impression of the Substack stance was that it boiled down to "one of our main values is free speech, and while we understand the desire for content moderation, we're going to lean towards letting people use our platform even if we disagree with what they're writing". Characterizing this as a "radical, hateful agenda" seems like… a stretch? Maybe I'm missing something here.

[lunatuna]

At first I thought that substack was part of the Thiel/Musk enterprise or some other messed up billionaire club of political engineering, but not much was offered. Say "Substak is . . . a political project made by extremists . . ." Can't see any evidence of it here.

The other angle I could see is Substack is algo'ing neo-nazi content to folks. But I can't go to cancel mode just for hosting. I can see that getting reductive - who's the hypersaler, who provided the electrons, who's sold them the servers . . . there is no end. It really needs to end with reader.

[philistine]

There's this continued idea to deplatform far-right bigots trying to make money online. Some will woefully let them speak their bile, but stop them at trying to make money. For example, you can't, if you're a nazi, start a Patreon.

Substack lets nazis make money.

[theendisney]

Why? We need to know they exist and to explain what is wrong with their view.

Some will eventually think it better if you dont talk either. Lots of stuff you are not suppose to know.

[philistine]

You sure we absolutely need a newsletter website that is in a business arrangement with people who want to kill people based on the colour of their skin?

Not just letting them on the platform, allowing them to make money off off their bigotry.

[theendisney]

They will do it anyway. How do you know it is bigotry if no one can see it? Do we take someones word for it?

If the speech is illegal where they live they can be persecuted properly. Not trialed by corporate robot.

[bdangubic]

nazis need to eat too…

[philistine]

They can do a job that is not directly correlated to their stupid views. You're not entitled to make money with your speech.

[bdangubic]

Not entitled but of course can’t be legally prevented from doing so unless we want to re-write the Constitution…

[philistine]

Who do you think I am, Uncle Sam? Holding each others to standards of who we allow on our platforms has nothing to do with freedom of speech in the US constitution. The US constitution does not force anyone, even the government, to provide a platform.

[tqi]

Yeah, I'd be curious what Fastly's content moderation policy is

[case]

https://www.fastly.com/acceptable-use

[Hasu]

> my impression of the Substack stance was that it boiled down to "one of our main values is free speech, and while we understand the desire for content moderation, we're going to lean towards letting people use our platform even if we disagree with what they're writing".

You have a bar, and you let anyone come in and say whatever they want, because you like free speech. At first it's just a normal bar. Then the local Nazi gang finds out about it, they show up and start saying Nazi shit to everyone. Everyone else stops coming because they don't want to hear Nazi shit, so, it's a Nazi bar now. The only people there are Nazis or people who don't mind drinking with Nazis. You say you aren't a Nazi, but you own the Nazi bar.

Substack is the Nazi bar.

[egourlao]

> Everyone else stops coming because they don't want to hear Nazi shit, so, it's a Nazi bar now.

There's plenty of non-Nazi writers enjoying a good amount of success on Substack, though? Or at least, as a casual Substack user, I'm not sure I've been exposed to any Nazi content…? So I'm not sure if this analogy holds up that well in this case.

[philistine]

Give it time. I mean look at Twitter. In two years, it will be just another Truth Social where everyone on there has the same political views.