More than 200 Substack authors asked the platform to explain why itâs âplatforming and monetizing Nazis,â and now they have an answer straight from co-founder Hamish McKenzie:
I just want to make it clear that we donât like Nazis eitherâwe wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we donât think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go awayâin fact, it makes it worse.
While McKenzie offers no evidence to back these ideas, this tracks with the companyâs 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. âWeâre not going to get into specific âwould you or wonât youâ content moderation questionsâ 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 âwe donât like or condone bigotry in any form.â
When did I say anything about forcing? The first amendment applies to the government only. Any company can do what they like, and I might have my opinion on it, but that doesnât mean I think anyone should have to have Nazis if they donât want to. Iâm just saying what is my take on what the right thing to do is.
It sounds like youâre the one advocating for Substack to have to operate their private servers in a fashion that they clearly donât want to do. Not saying this is you, but Iâve seen other (presumably confused) people in this thread advocating for talking to Substackâs âadvertisersâ to pressure them into banning the Nazis, and talking to Stripe about what kind of content Substack is allowing, to try to coerce Substack into banning the Nazis. Iâm strongly against that, whether it comes from the âpro-free-speechâ crowd or the anti-Nazi crowd.
Except, of course, for that one time. That one time it was a pretty big issue.
Thatâs not purely a flip answer. As far back ago as the business plot, and certainly all the way through the heyday of the KKK, there have been fascist and extremist elements in the USA. There was an American Nazi party. The US always had strong protections (in theory and mostly in practice) for those abhorrent views in the public sphere, whereas in Germany itâs legal for the current government to ban Nazis, or for the Nazi government to ban communists.
Why, then, did the fascists take over in Germany and not the US? If allowing Nazi speech is so dangerous and banning it is such a powerful tool against it?
(Edit: phrasing)
So youâre directly saying thatâs what it sounds like Iâm doing, but youâre not saying itâs me?
That one time before anything relating to the Nazis was banned in Germany? Whatâs your point?
Iâm saying that youâre saying Substack shouldnât be letting Nazis on their servers, and when they issue a detailed statement explaining why theyâre doing that, you object to it. I never said any company should change their policy away from the policy they want to have, and you have, but youâre accusing me of trying to âforceâ a private company to change their policy.
There are other people in the thread who are saying âweâ should start trying to coerce Substack into banning the Nazis. As far as I know, thatâs not you, so I didnât accuse you of it, but I did bring it up as an example of something else that I object to even more strongly.
My point is, hateful political speech can be banned in Germany. That was true before the Nazis. And yet, they came to power. Hateful political speech canât be banned in the US, and yet fascists didnât come to power here (or⊠not as thoroughly as it did in Germany, at least). I listed some examples from way before WW2. Does my thinking not make sense here? You donât have to agree or anything, just trying to lay out another reason behind why I think that way.
I have blatantly told you already that I am not saying that. So now you are deliberately lying.
Bullshit. Absolute and utter bullshit. So no, your bullshit does not make sense.
What?
Iâm really not trying to get into anything heated with you. Iâm not the enemy of you or anything, regardless if youâre getting irritated at the conversation.
I donât really want to play some kind of gotcha game of going back through your comments, but I want to defend myself against you saying Iâm deliberately lying. You told me, for example, âyou are spending a lot of time defending Substackâs right to make money from Nazisâ. Itâs hard for me to take that any way than that you wouldnât defend Substackâs right to make money from Nazis⊠i.e. that you object to them making money from Nazis, you think they shouldnât be allowed to monetize Nazis if they want to. Yes, I think they have that right, if they want to.
If this is, again, me being fuzzy on the difference between banning versus monetizing, then I apologize again. Can you just clarify exactly what you mean? Do you think for example that itâs okay if Substack hosts Nazi content, but doesnât monetize it? If you tell me exactly what you think I can be careful to respect it and not misrepresent you.
What?
What protection was there for unpopular political speech in Germany before the war? I know the Nazis banned communists, in a way that the US wasnât able to ban socialists and communists despite wanting to, before the war. Is that not an example? Can you explain a little more instead of just cursing at me? Again, Iâm not trying to get heated at you. If you just get mad and start cursing at me instead of having some kind of rational disagreement Iâll go do something else.
For fuckâs sake⊠there is a big, BIG difference between âSubstack should not be making money from Nazisâ and âSubstack should not allow Nazi content.â You must know this but you keep claiming I want the former. That is what is called a lie.
And yes, it is bullshit that Nazi hate speech was banned before the Nazis came to power. Utter bullshit. And calling something bullshit is not me cursing at you. But itâs interesting that you find âbullshitâ so hard to tolerate that you donât want me saying it but âkill the Jewsâ acceptable and defensible.
So, you think itâs fine if Substack hosts Nazi content but doesnât profit from it? Just subsidizes it with free hosting? Thatâs surprising to me if itâs true, yes; thatâs not what I thought your viewpoint was. But thatâs not me âlyingâ deliberately or anything. Maybe I was sloppy and misunderstood or missed some explanation of yours; Iâm willing to take your word for it if you tell me explicitly that you think that thatâs okay.
Please be explicit, though, so I can understand. You think itâs fine if Substack hosts Nazi content but doesnât profit from it? Just subsidizes it with free hosting?
I think youâre just confused on what Iâm saying and getting mad, because what youâre getting of it doesnât make sense.
I think you should for-real just go back and read what I actually wrote, to try to understand it, whether or not you agree. Iâm obviously not saying Nazi speech specifically was banned before there were Nazis. Iâm making a statement about banned political speech in general, using examples of Nazi speech once the Nazis came to be, and communism across some different time periods.
If youâre not into the idea of calming down and trying to understand what I actually wrote â again, whether or not you agree once it comes across â Iâm not into the idea of spending time just yelling at each other.
I literally said that I was talking about monetization and not banning, twice now, so the only reason you could misunderstand is that youâre not actually reading my posts⊠which makes this quite ironic:
It is a lie that I am not calm as well. And I am not yelling. Stop lying⊠or whatever you claim youâre doing instead of lying. And maybe read what I write, especially the blatant statements.
I have no idea why you think you can lie over and over again and get away with it by just claiming youâre not lying.
Let me take a different tack and just ask a direct question and nothing else. Do you think itâs fine if Substack hosts Nazi content but doesnât profit from it? Just subsidizes it with free hosting?
Are you planning to answer my question? Iâm fine to just drop it if youâre not planning to, but you accused me of deliberately lying because I represented your views a certain way. It seems fair for me to ask directly, okay, what are your views then? So I can understand in what way they donât match the way I described them?
Iâm not trying to hound you about it if you just want to drop it. But I am not a liar. If youâre going to make that accusation, Iâm going to ask you to back it up, and assume that it was unwarranted if you just suddenly go silent when asked clarifying questions.