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.”

  • ZeroCool@feddit.ch
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    7 months ago

    I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either

    Actions speak louder than words. Fuck Substack and fuck any platform that offers a safe haven for nazis.

    • whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      “I want you to know that I don’t like nazis. But I am fine platforming them and profiting from them. Now here is some bullshit about silencing ‘ideas.’”

  • TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    Yea… Meta took the same “free peaches” approach and the entire fucking globe is now dealing with various versions of white nationalism. So like, can we actually give censorship of hate a fucking try for once? I’m willing to go down that road.

    • extracheese@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Never ever fall for that one. You can look at various regimes in the world what happens when “hate” gets censored. Demonitizing is one thing, technical implementations to “live censor hate” would be catastrophic.

      • ira@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        I’m looking. Is something supposed to stand out about Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK?

  • Gamers_Mate@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    “we don’t like or condone bigotry in any form.” I mean they are litterally Condoning bigotry.

    “His response similarly doesn’t engage other questions from the Substackers Against Nazis authors, like why these policies allow it to moderate spam and newsletters from sex workers but not Nazis.”

    Doesn’t seem very consistent.

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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        7 months ago

        “We do not condone Nazi propaganda, but we are very concerned about sex work causing social degeneracy.”

  • maegul@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    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.

    • winterayars@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Oh yeah that’s the classic. The interviewer describes himself as one of the targets, even, and that still doesn’t make it real for this fuck.

  • Dra@lemmy.zip
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    7 months ago

    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.

  • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Good for them. I’m all for allowing people make their own choices about what kind of content they want to see instead of a corporation/government deciding for them.

    I can’t think of a single thing we’ve succesfully gotten rid of by banning it. I however can think of several examples where it has had an opposite effect.

  • kandoh@reddthat.com
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    7 months ago

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

  • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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    7 months ago

    Kicking them off the platform just sends them to other echo chambers like False social where they just circle jerk each other all day unchallenged.

    • sc_griffith@awful.systems
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      7 months ago

      wow that’s terrible, that they’d circlejerk each other instead of having a mass audience to post propaganda to. I can’t imagine a worse outcome

  • Unaware7013@kbin.social
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    7 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.

  • justastranger@sh.itjust.works
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    7 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.

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    We already knew that SS liked Nazis.

    All joking aside, silencing Nazis and deplatforming them is LITERALLY fighting against them. How is allowing them to make money and market themselves on your platform doing anything to stem the tide of Nazism? Obviously they’re playing culture war games and saying they’re not.