On Feeling Conflicted about Substack

I’ve been writing on Substack for a week short of three years. Every single Tuesday, without fail, I have brought a small but dedicated number of people to the Substack platform and have plugged links to the website on all my social media profiles. The issue, however, is that Substack has something that can only be described as a “Nazi Problem.” The worst part about this Nazi Problem on Substack is the attitude Substack has taken. In this situation, I’ve found myself at a moral crossroads and I’m not sure what to do.

Any website that allows user-generated content, given enough users, will eventually run into extremist content. There will always be a percentage of users who take the idea of digital town squares and shout racist, sexist, and xenophobic, (and any other -ist or -phobic you can think of) hate speech. That sucks. Of course, in the United States of America, we enshrine free speech as one of our founding principles…but that doesn’t mean you need to be platformed when you spew hateful things, it just means the government can’t arrest you for it.

Recently, more than 200 popular authors on Substack asked the company why it was “platforming and monetizing Nazis.” Co-founder Hamish McKenzie gave this weak ass answer,

“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.”

Pathetic.

The Substack Platform has always flaunted the fact that they run a laissez-faire business when it comes to content moderation. So, they let several Substack publications that proudly display “overt Nazi symbols” in their logos and promote writings from prominent white nationalist authors, run free, spewing hate and generating money.

One could be forgiven for posing the question, “Well, if they’re simply not moderating the content on Substack, isn’t it up to the market to decide what is and isn’t acceptable?” While I disagree with that stance on principle, it also isn’t true of Substack as they have, in numerous cases, de-platformed and demonetized both spam newsletters and legitimate newsletters written by sex workers…but Nazis are A-Okay, I guess.

It’s hard in today’s world to take stances against companies who do bad things, or promote bad things, or fund bad things because, basically, every large company is doing SOMETHING morally reprehensible if you look hard enough. After years of putting up with toxic bullshit from Twitter (now X) I recently deleted my account because there’s only so much anti-Semitism I can accept from Elon (and, arguably, that amount was too much).

Now, I’m at a crossroads with Substack. In the new year, I don’t know if I’ll keep publishing Will’s Dumb Brain on this shitty website that allows and promotes white nationalism. It feels like I shouldn’t. So, be on the lookout for what’s to come and if and when I move this party elsewhere. In the immortal words of the Dead Kennedys, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.”