“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.”

  • TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    947·
    1 year 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.worldEnglish
      1068·
      1 year 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.mlEnglish
        462·
        1 year ago

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

        • HiT3k@midwest.socialEnglish
          12·
          1 year ago

          Actually, yes. In the UK people (including Jewish people) are being arrested and jailed for speaking out against Israeli naziism and genocide as inciting “hate.”

          That example is literally EXACTLY why people, myself included, believe that the censoring of certain types of speech needs to remain exclusively a private enterprise.

        • KptnAutismus@lemmy.worldEnglish
          429·
          1 year ago

          not everyone who doesn’t want to censor nazis is a nazi. while i think hate has no place anywhere online, i agree that free speech is important. substack should definetely stop someone hateful from earning money on that platform one way or another.

            • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
              323·
              1 year ago

              They can’t. That would break the illusion of being an “enlightened centrist.”

              I.E. votes right wing, sees themselves as slightly more moderate, but sympathizer and defender of the far right and Nazis.

              Or one of the many foreign troll farms found to be pushing the “enlightened centrist” narrative.

              • KptnAutismus@lemmy.worldEnglish
                418·
                1 year ago

                i’m by no means any kind of centrist or right leaning and i do have very strong opinions about nazis. but free speech on the internet is a very important thing, while i also believe hate speech should be censored.

                tl;dr, conflicting opinions != Nazi, dumbass.

                • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  3·
                  1 year ago

                  It’s not the conflicting opinions. It’s your lack of commitment to your own professed opinions. You literally stated you believe hate speech should be censored. But all your arguments to this point are that they should not. Where is your consistency?

            • KptnAutismus@lemmy.worldEnglish
              316·
              1 year ago

              i don’t think i will, this is complicated and i don’t care enough. i am not taking sides.

              • CazRaX@lemmy.worldEnglish
                67·
                1 year ago

                Won’t work here, on here it is black or white, either hate Nazis and anything that even approaches it or you are one. Every other subject in the world will be grey and nuanced, and they will argue minor points to death, except for this.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  63·
                  1 year ago

                  If you do not support removing Nazis from the public sphere, you aren’t necessarily a Nazi. But you do support Nazis. That didn’t make a difference between 1939 and 1945 and it doesn’t make a difference now.

                  • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    1·
                    1 year ago

                    I agree if we’re talking about literal, actual Nazis waving the flag and everything. The pushback, which I agree with, begins when people start calling everyone a Nazi, or a fascist. It has got ridiculous, I’m embarrassingly leftist and get accused of it.

                    You might complain when that practice of conflating slightly differing leftist views with fascism backfires and results in people accidentally defending literal Nazis, but you shouldn’t have diluted the term in the first place.