“We don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away.”

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.”

  • extracheese@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1381·
    11 months ago

    Never ever fall for that one. You can look at various regimes in the world what happens when “hate” gets censored. Demonitizing is one thing, technical implementations to “live censor hate” would be catastrophic.

    • ira@lemmy.mlEnglish
      503·
      11 months ago

      I’m looking. Is something supposed to stand out about Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK?

      • HiT3k@midwest.socialEnglish
        34·
        11 months ago

        Actually, yes. In the UK people (including Jewish people) are being arrested and jailed for speaking out against Israeli naziism and genocide as inciting “hate.”

        That example is literally EXACTLY why people, myself included, believe that the censoring of certain types of speech needs to remain exclusively a private enterprise.

        • TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          11 months ago

          That’s an interesting point. On one hand Israel is the way it is because right wing nationalism has been normalized through open and free speech in the US. But Israel is also where it is because of the conflation of the meaning of antisemitism shutting down anyone challenging it. Though, I am seeing that conflation being properly challenged more so now than ever before but it’s obviously not fast enough. It’s probably time to implement looking more at collective actions more than words within governmental policy writing. As in mass killings = bad. I wish humans didn’t suck.

      • extracheese@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        11 months ago

        There is real time censorship present anywhere in europe? Nowhere near. We have “you have to act within certain time” laws when content gets flaged, that’s all. You could argue forcing DNS resolvers to block certain domains is censorhip though. Look at China. Talk bad about politics in your private chats with your mates, i’m sure your censorship dream will do you and your family well! Heck even talking about Winnie poh is “hate” or was this not true?

        Again, demonitize them as you want. But censorship just leads to the groups isolating more and more from the world.

        Just look at the beliefs of people witch a member of cults (or religions if you want) - thousands of people which are explicitly denied via rules to gather knowledge in the internet (looking at you Mormons). I’d like to call that psychological censorship - it aims for the same goal in a way but I get way to off topic

      • KptnAutismus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        635·
        11 months ago

        not everyone who doesn’t want to censor nazis is a nazi. while i think hate has no place anywhere online, i agree that free speech is important. substack should definetely stop someone hateful from earning money on that platform one way or another.

          • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
            384·
            11 months ago

            They can’t. That would break the illusion of being an “enlightened centrist.”

            I.E. votes right wing, sees themselves as slightly more moderate, but sympathizer and defender of the far right and Nazis.

            Or one of the many foreign troll farms found to be pushing the “enlightened centrist” narrative.

            • KptnAutismus@lemmy.worldEnglish
              423·
              11 months ago

              i’m by no means any kind of centrist or right leaning and i do have very strong opinions about nazis. but free speech on the internet is a very important thing, while i also believe hate speech should be censored.

              tl;dr, conflicting opinions != Nazi, dumbass.

              • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
                6·
                11 months ago

                It’s not the conflicting opinions. It’s your lack of commitment to your own professed opinions. You literally stated you believe hate speech should be censored. But all your arguments to this point are that they should not. Where is your consistency?

          • HiT3k@midwest.socialEnglish
            23·
            11 months ago

            Why are you so combative? You responded to a post rebutting a desire to censor speech from a legal perspective. Being opposed to defining any speech as illegal and being a nazi sympathizer are two very different things. You do not, in fact, have to choose one.

          • KptnAutismus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            321·
            11 months ago

            i don’t think i will, this is complicated and i don’t care enough. i am not taking sides.

            • CazRaX@lemmy.worldEnglish
              711·
              11 months ago

              Won’t work here, on here it is black or white, either hate Nazis and anything that even approaches it or you are one. Every other subject in the world will be grey and nuanced, and they will argue minor points to death, except for this.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
                93·
                11 months ago

                If you do not support removing Nazis from the public sphere, you aren’t necessarily a Nazi. But you do support Nazis. That didn’t make a difference between 1939 and 1945 and it doesn’t make a difference now.

                • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  23·
                  11 months ago

                  I agree if we’re talking about literal, actual Nazis waving the flag and everything. The pushback, which I agree with, begins when people start calling everyone a Nazi, or a fascist. It has got ridiculous, I’m embarrassingly leftist and get accused of it.

                  You might complain when that practice of conflating slightly differing leftist views with fascism backfires and results in people accidentally defending literal Nazis, but you shouldn’t have diluted the term in the first place.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    5·
                    11 months ago

                    These are literal, actual Nazis waving the flag and everything.

                    From the article:

                    This latest clash over moderation comes after The Atlantic reported on Substack publications with “overt Nazi symbols” in their logos, several from prominent white nationalists, and other posts on Substack supporting those views.

                  • TacoButtPlug@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                    31·
                    11 months ago

                    I’m just replying to tell you I hear you. We definitely don’t want to lose the weight that word carries. I’m glad the term is being accurately used in this case.