A few weeks back, the Atlantic ran an article by Jonathan Katz with the headline Substack Has a Nazi Problem. In what should be no surprise given what happened earlier this year with Best’s interview, the Nazis very quickly realized that Substack was a welcome home for them:
Eventually, the Substack founders had to respond. They couldn’t stare off into the distance like Best did during the Nilay Patel interview in April. So another founder, Hamish McKenzie, finally published a Note saying “yes, we allow Nazis and we’re not going to stop.” Of course, as is too often the case on these things, he tried to couch it as a principled stance:
Ken “Popehat” White explained it well in his own (yes, Substack) post on all of this.
https://popehat.substack.com/p/substack-has-a-nazi-opportunity
@Beanc what's the world coming to
This was the classic “Nazi bar” scenario: if you’re not kicking out Nazis, you get the reputation as “the Nazi bar” even if you, yourself, don’t like Nazis.
@corlin yup totally agree with that you can't kick someone out just because they are in
BUT there should be some sort of content moderation where the more vile posters do get kicked out
just like a lot of platforms that pay users they wanna keep they users like rumble to name but one who also "welcomed nazi content" in a public display and their users went up dramatically after that < i watched the stats and i'm watching substack stats also since i read that 1st article
I like Ken “Popehat” White, was disgusted by the weasel words, and no defense, defense that McKenzie wrote. I would have been happy if he just said "Substack needs the revenue stream".
Everybody knows moderation at scale is nearly impossible.
But NOT trying is worse.
@corlin there is no way to moderate everything but if users even think they are being watched they'd change.......well some might others will just moan and move to a another platform
AI could help, and i'm sure it is being tried, for this issue by flagging post then humans can read and determine if there is a breach of T&Cs of course platforms would need to be specific about what will get you kicked out lol which most don't do
I don't like Substack and was super bummed that many of my favorite old school Twitter follows like Rupar, Kruse, Popehat, Moxon, etc. went that route.
I really wish that Post hadn't tried to pivot to "full platform" when Elon started pooping the nest. The idea of a pay by the article portal for local, national, and freelance journalists is excellent and would let the links be shared across all social media.
Alas. We got Substack. And more Nazis.
Substack Turns On Its ‘Nazis Welcome!’ Sign
#SocialMedia
(If you signal publicly that you allow Nazis (and allow them to make money), don’t be surprised when the Nazis arrive. In droves. Your reputation is what you allow.)
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/26/substack-turns-on-its-nazis-welcome-sign/