Substackers Against Nazis
A collective letter to Substack leadership
Hello JoeWrote readers,
While I’m excited about the potential Substack provides independent writers, the platform has a real problem. Despite moderating certain kinds of writing, such as spam and pornography, Substack’s leaders have turned a blind eye to, and in some cases even promoted, neo-Nazis and White Nationalists.
This is a collective letter from Substack writers to the company’s leadership demanding an answer to a very simple question — What do you plan to do about the Nazis, White Nationalists, and fascists using Substack to promote their vile ideology? Do you plan to moderate their content, as you have done with sex workers? Or, do you plan to continue to profit from writers who employ swastikas, promote The Great Replacement Theory, and celebrate the holocaust?
This letter was started by
and has already been signed by over 200 Substack publications. Unsurprisingly, many of the usual suspects have tried to malign this letter as an attempt at “cancel culture” and “policing speech we disagree with.” It is not. This letter is not calling for the U.S. government to prevent certain speech. It is calling for an answer from the leadership of a private company, who, absent a response, can only be assumed to be comfortable with profiting off the ideology of Adolf Hitler.Below is the letter.
In Solidarity — Joe
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 on 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. 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. If you want to you can let us know you’ve done so here and we’ll add you to the signatory page.
I really appreciate the opportunity here to discuss our diverging opinions on this. I'm a big fan of your work and think the dialogue illustrates that social media platforms have the bandwidth to accommodate many different viewpoints. The reason many of us are on Substack is because we have witnessed an incredible uptick in censorship by legacy media and on other social media platforms. We value free expression and Substack has promised to be that champion. I imagine if you asked Jonathan Katz, he'd agree with that last statement.
Media platforms are the town squares of our day despite being private companies and have been granted unique 230 status under the law providing immunity from liability based on third party content. They also have the ability to moderate certain illegal content (ie porn, sex trafficking) intending to protect harm to children primarily. Some proponents of censorship in government have recently pushed to get rid of the 230 status, leaving social media platforms open to litigation and government regulation. In my opinion, this is a dangerous idea.
I can also point to recent revelations uncovered by Matt Taibi and Michael Shellenburger and presented to congress that showed social media changing it's terms of service under government pressure to accommodate the censoring of domestic enemies of the state. Platforms used as shields basically. I'm going to take it on good faith that this has not happened to Substack ...yet this is kinda what Katz wants to have happen.
The intent of the letter you signed is to persuade Substack to censor speech that is objectionable (and yes, objectionable to most people on the site and I would guess to the Substack leadership). You are all within your free speech right to object and protest of course. It will be interesting to hear their response. But I sure hope Substack doesn't fold and remains an arena for everyone regardless of their opinions and ideas. Imagine for a minute if a group of staunch patriots of democracy wrote a letter to Substack saying that Joe Mayall's website is full of unamerican socialist propaganda and they want it removed? I'm exaggerating to make a point but you see where I'm going with this.
Personally, I don't see the rampant Nazi propaganda that Katz has claimed is all over Substack but I'm sure there is some and, to me, none of it is good. But again, free speech applies to all speech, not just speech I find acceptable.
Again, thanks for the permission to discuss this with you on your website and for the chance to express my opinions.
I respectfully disagree with you here, Joe. The first amendment protects all speech even speech with which the consensus may abhor. That is the point of the protection. The protections also give people who the right to counter abhorant speech. I can point to he ACLU and Skokie Supreme Court case as one example.
You are a purveyor of history, you know well that our society has evolved over the years to reject certain speech that was once accepted. If not for the protections, the black civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the gay liberation movements which were unpopular (even illegal) ideas at the time may never have happened. Change happens as the movements grow and society's attitudes decide to embrace the new norms, not because speech or behavior is mandated.
Regulating speech presents a further complication when you consider who gets to decide what speech is okay and which is not. Let's look at the last 3 years. Anyone who questioned the COVID narrative was not only called out by the government and their paid mouthpiece, the legacy media, as conspiracy kooks which indeed they are free to do but they crossed they line and went much further than what the first amendment allows. They regulated, censored and punished individuals for their differing point of view or even for questioning the established narrative, most of which we now know was incorrect.
So while I know you and most reasonable people (the majority) are reacting to the vile speech and ideas of Nazism. The answer is not shutting it down, regulating speech thereby setting a precedent of weakening the first amendment, and forcing hate groups underground (which is what happens) but to speak out, protest and hopefully in the end turn the tide of hate into love.