“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
    1·
    1 year ago

    For fuck’s sake… there is a big, BIG difference between “Substack should not be making money from Nazis” and “Substack should not allow Nazi content.” You must know this but you keep claiming I want the former. That is what is called a lie.

    And yes, it is bullshit that Nazi hate speech was banned before the Nazis came to power. Utter bullshit. And calling something bullshit is not me cursing at you. But it’s interesting that you find ‘bullshit’ so hard to tolerate that you don’t want me saying it but ‘kill the Jews’ acceptable and defensible.