“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.”

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.worldEnglish
    887·
    11 months ago

    This would be silly even if they didn’t moderate at all but they do. They don’t allow sex workers use their service. And we aren’t talking about “Nazis” as a code word for the far right. The complaint letter cited literal Nazis with swastika logos.

    Plus, how grand are his delusions of grandeur if he thinks his fucking glorified email blast manager is the one true hope for free speech? Let the Nazis self-host an open source solution (like Ghost).