Substackers against Nazis
A collective letter to Substack leadership
Hello Fictionistas,
Below is a letter to the Substack founders. Many publishers on this platform seek answers to questions about the platforming and monetizing of Nazis on Substack. We are publishing the letter on our individual Substacks today to raise visibility about this issue.
As an added note, several members of the Fictionistas community have passionately addressed this issue in Notes, so hopefully, many of our members are already aware of the issue. Thanks for reading, and we encourage you to join our efforts.
[Edit: this is not a call for censorship - see the comments at the end.]
Dear Chris, Hamish & Jairaj:
We’re asking a very simple question that has somehow been made complicated: Why are you platforming and monetizing Nazis?
According to a piece written by Substack publisher Jonathan M. Katz and published by The Atlantic on November 28, this platform has a Nazi problem:
“Some Substack newsletters by Nazis and white nationalists have thousands or tens of thousands of subscribers, making the platform a new and valuable tool for creating mailing lists for the far right. And many accept paid subscriptions through Substack, seemingly flouting terms of service that ban attempts to ‘publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes’...Substack, which takes a 10 percent cut of subscription revenue, makes money when readers pay for Nazi newsletters.”
As Patrick Casey, a leader of a now-defunct neo-Nazi group who is banned on nearly every other social platform except Substack, wrote here in 2021: “I’m able to live comfortably doing something I find enjoyable and fulfilling. The cause isn’t going anywhere.” Several Nazis and white supremacists, including Richard Spencer, not only have paid subscriptions turned on but have received Substack “Bestseller” badges, indicating that they are making, at a minimum, thousands of dollars a year.
From our perspective as Substack publishers, it is unfathomable that someone with a swastika avatar, who writes about “The Jewish question,” or who promotes Great Replacement Theory, could be given the tools to succeed on your platform. And yet you’ve been unable to adequately explain your position.
In the past, you have defended your decision to platform bigotry by saying you “make decisions based on principles, not PR” and “will stick to our hands-off approach to content moderation.” But there’s a difference between a hands-off approach and putting your thumb on the scale. We know you moderate some content, including spam sites and newsletters written by sex workers. Why do you choose to promote and allow the monetization of sites that traffic in white nationalism?
Your unwillingness to play by your own rules on this issue has already led to the announced departures of several prominent Substackers, including Rusty Foster and Helena Fitzgerald. They follow previous exoduses of writers, including Substack Pro recipient Grace Lavery and Jude Ellison S. Doyle, who left with similar concerns.
As journalist Casey Newton told his more than 166,000 Substack subscribers after Katz’s piece came out: “The correct number of newsletters using Nazi symbols that you host and profit from on your platform is zero.”
We, your publishers, want to hear from you on the official Substack newsletter. Is platforming Nazis part of your vision of success? Let us know—from there, we can each decide if this is still where we want to be.
Signed,
Substackers Against Nazis
Thanks for reading. If this letter resonates, please share this post with others. If you’re a publisher who would like to join this collective effort, we encourage you to repost the letter on your own Substack.
I respect your right to gather support for a cause. I also respectfully disagree with the proposal of censorship on Substack as the best way forward.
In my opinion, squashing speech we disagree with does not make it go away, but instead creates the conditions for that speech to grow more righteous. As a parent, I see this play out between my kids and myself when I attempt to exert control -- it just becomes a righteous battle of my ego vs their ego.
Also reminds me of how the U.S. has handled terrorist groups in other countries. Instead of discovering the underlying needs and providing support there (i.e. a need for food, water, shelter, work, and safety) just demonize the terrorists as "bad" and enforce more and more restrictions, leading to more and more terrorist activity. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy -- we took away their "XYZ" and look at how bad they are being now! See, they were bad all along!
Do any of these restrictions change people or just lead them to gather somewhere else, potentially interpreting censorship as a new head on the hydra they call their enemy to justify pushing harder on their cause and having more fuel for recruitment?
This post by Elle Griffin resonated with me as an alternative view on the matter: https://www.elysian.press/p/substack-writers-for-community-moderation?r=2agnvt&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
"Other social media platforms have actively given reach to an enormous amount of divisive content, and moderation has amounted to private companies deciding who to deplatform based on their own agenda. Facebook has struggled with hate speech and misinformation no matter what it has tried with its moderation policies, and Twitter’s moderators have actively suppressed stories that might sway an upcoming election, among other discrepancies.
There can be no doubt that there is a lot of hateful content on the internet. But Substack has come up with the best solution yet: Giving writers and readers the freedom of speech without surfacing that speech to the masses. In your Substack Inbox, you only receive the newsletters you subscribe to. Whether you’re a reader or a writer, it is unlikely you’ll receive hateful content at all if you don’t follow it."
I share my opinion openly, I won't sign in agreement but I will also not stand in your way. Do what you feel you must do.
finally a group that was (loosely, at this point) affiliated with the marketing-heavy push of elle and her bullshit that is actually saying "hey fuck dem nazis" and not just hiding behind a very weak free speech argument on a private platform. good job Jack and Jeff