“We don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away.”

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.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    11 months ago

    It sounds like you’re the one advocating for Substack to have to operate their private servers in a fashion that they clearly don’t want to do. Not saying this is you

    So you’re directly saying that’s what it sounds like I’m doing, but you’re not saying it’s me?

    Except, of course, for that one time. That one time it was a pretty big issue.

    That one time before anything relating to the Nazis was banned in Germany? What’s your point?

    • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      So you’re directly saying that’s what it sounds like I’m doing, but you’re not saying it’s me?

      I’m saying that you’re saying Substack shouldn’t be letting Nazis on their servers, and when they issue a detailed statement explaining why they’re doing that, you object to it. I never said any company should change their policy away from the policy they want to have, and you have, but you’re accusing me of trying to “force” a private company to change their policy.

      There are other people in the thread who are saying “we” should start trying to coerce Substack into banning the Nazis. As far as I know, that’s not you, so I didn’t accuse you of it, but I did bring it up as an example of something else that I object to even more strongly.

      That one time before anything relating to the Nazis was banned in Germany? What’s your point?

      My point is, hateful political speech can be banned in Germany. That was true before the Nazis. And yet, they came to power. Hateful political speech can’t be banned in the US, and yet fascists didn’t come to power here (or… not as thoroughly as it did in Germany, at least). I listed some examples from way before WW2. Does my thinking not make sense here? You don’t have to agree or anything, just trying to lay out another reason behind why I think that way.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        11 months ago

        I’m saying that you’re saying Substack shouldn’t be letting Nazis on their servers

        I have blatantly told you already that I am not saying that. So now you are deliberately lying.

        My point is, hateful political speech can be banned in Germany. That was true before the Nazis.

        Bullshit. Absolute and utter bullshit. So no, your bullshit does not make sense.

        • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          What?

          I’m really not trying to get into anything heated with you. I’m not the enemy of you or anything, regardless if you’re getting irritated at the conversation.

          have blatantly told you already that I am not saying that. So now you are deliberately lying.

          I don’t really want to play some kind of gotcha game of going back through your comments, but I want to defend myself against you saying I’m deliberately lying. You told me, for example, “you are spending a lot of time defending Substack’s right to make money from Nazis”. It’s hard for me to take that any way than that you wouldn’t defend Substack’s right to make money from Nazis… i.e. that you object to them making money from Nazis, you think they shouldn’t be allowed to monetize Nazis if they want to. Yes, I think they have that right, if they want to.

          If this is, again, me being fuzzy on the difference between banning versus monetizing, then I apologize again. Can you just clarify exactly what you mean? Do you think for example that it’s okay if Substack hosts Nazi content, but doesn’t monetize it? If you tell me exactly what you think I can be careful to respect it and not misrepresent you.

          My point is, hateful political speech can be banned in Germany. That was true before the Nazis.

          Bullshit. Absolute and utter bullshit. So no, your bullshit does not make sense.

          What?

          What protection was there for unpopular political speech in Germany before the war? I know the Nazis banned communists, in a way that the US wasn’t able to ban socialists and communists despite wanting to, before the war. Is that not an example? Can you explain a little more instead of just cursing at me? Again, I’m not trying to get heated at you. If you just get mad and start cursing at me instead of having some kind of rational disagreement I’ll go do something else.