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.”
Facebook just shrugs off the rampant white supremacist content on its platform with great success, you can literally put up a profile photo with an “It’s OK to be white” frame, or “white power” supplied by Facebook. I guess Substack thinks that if it works for Facebook it should be fine for them.
Incidentally Reddit banned me for posting pictures of Nazis on r/beholdthemasterrace, a subreddit for mocking white supremacy, when some Nazis went and complained to Reddit admins I was doing it. Reddit also sides with Nazis, they’re just quieter about it.
You probably got banned by reddit because other subreddits will nail you with bots for just posting to certain subs regardless of the context.
No, I saw one of the Nazis I posted talking on Facebook about how he had reported me to Reddit admins. Well then don’t have a swastika face tattoo.
White powder 🌨️
Is there some specific background to “it’s okay to be white”? Without any context it does not sound obviously " white supremacist related to me, but it could be cultural, language or other.
It’s a Nazi talking point, one of their tropes is that white people are being eradicated everywhere because of multiculturalism and diversity, and that people are being taught it’s not ok to just be white. The slogan originated from 4chan trolling but Nazis have absolutely adopted it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_okay_to_be_white