Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by rsingel 13 hours ago
You could do the same thing through Ghost, which has an API, and not be using a service that proudly platforms the Tates and nazis.
2 comments

I don’t know anything about the specific situation you’re referencing. That being said, getting mad at an organization, one that is built to be a “platform” for people to share their words, for not going out of its way to police which people share which words, seems to me to be unproductive at best, if not actively close minded and tribalistic.
Substack has gone out of its way to platform the right and has been very proud to work with folks like Andrew Tate, Graham Linehan, and anti-vaxxers whose disinfo helped kill tens of thousands of Americans.

https://counterhate.com/blog/substack-generates-at-least-2-5...

Sure, tolerate Nazis, give them a place to share their words, let them be part of the mainstream, let them take part in elections, play their dirty tricks and form paramilitaries and win control of government. It's a shame that that leads to certain groups, like Jews, LGBTQ, non-whites, or immigrants getting exterminated, but that's just the price you have to pay for free speech.
Let's see what the man who coined the term paradox of tolerance had to say about this:

>In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

Oh no, Karl Popper is a Nazi. Quick punch him.

That’s backwards. Society does not move forward despite free speech, rather because of it. The only way to truly move past harmful ideas and ideologies is to show those who would otherwise subscribe how dumb they are. You can try to quell them, but that just lends to their appeal, and results in those that do subscribe being more extreme and doing more extreme things. For a real world example, take someone who thinks that Nick Fuentes is a reasonable, respectable guy, and then show them the recent discussion between him and Hunter Biden, and see if they don’t at least get uncomfortable, unsure.
If this were true, far right mainstream media (eg Newsmax, NY Post) would not have the viewership and readership they enjoy.

In any case, few people here (and in general, IME) are suggesting that Nazis should have no platform whatsoever, only that we shouldn't choose to associate ourselves with those platforms -- especially when there are so many perfectly viable alternatives that don't occasionally promote Nazis to your readers.

The problem is not really Nazis saying despicable things, their so-called "free speech". The problem is that they are Nazis and will really do all these things if they get a chance. Why would you want to collaborate with Nazis, especially by giving them space on your platform where they can organize and publicize? Sure, collaborating with them in any other way is also bad, selling them food, giving them jobs, or whatever. It's not surprising that some people don't like collaborators any more than they like Nazis.
What about for going out of their way to find and pay despicable people for their words?
oh it's more than the org. IIRC, it's also the founder.
Ghost would cost $288/month (or $241/month paid yearly).
I'll put my money where my mouth is. We at Outpost will host your site on Ghost for a year for free and migrate all your substack subscribers, with the only caveats that 1) you put a tip jar link (either to Ghost's or Outpost's) at the end of every email with some text like support us being on an indie platform and 2) at the end of the year or earlier report how it went.
With 66k subscribers you could cover that without even really trying by setting up a $5/month donation tier or putting a tip jar on the site. With a tiny bit of effort, you could make thousands a month.

Substack lets you get away with sending that many emails without attempting to monetize because you pay them in clout and with your reader data.

I think they are getting the better deal given how good your writing is and your reputation.