OK, let's talk nazis, again

What to do when nazis and other madmen come to your beloved "platform".

What to do when nazis and other madmen come to your beloved "platform".

Executive summary

1. Don't take it personally, but if the actual root problem exists, that is if we still need "platforms" where even nazis are present, it's in good part your fault (but not in the ways you may believe)

2. demand demonetization of nazi newsletters makes sense

3. but leaving Substack for the simple fact that it also hosts some nazi or similar newsletters is naive and counterproductive, not to mention suicidal for most writers

4. so toughen up, to remain and fight in more efficient ways

What we are talking about

Writer Office Hour"s is a weekly forum where Substack staff, authors and readers discuss everything about "publishing, growing, or going paid on Substack". During the session of Dec. 14th, 2023 several participants asked questions like:

• What actions will you take regarding the issue of Nazism, as discussed in "Substack Has a Nazi Problem" (SHNP) in The Atlantic and the Substackers Against Nazis (SAN) open letter here on Substack?

• Why is Substack platforming and promoting Nazis, and when is that going to change? (It's not just a question of allowing Nazi propaganda and hate speech on Substack. There are instances where the founders have actually highlighted the propagandists (and even profits from their activities)

Before explaining, for the second time, the limits of certain well-intentioned reactions to this situation, let me remember that this is not the only "problematic" issue that on Substack finds more space than elsewhere. And let me say that I'm a bit tired to see great denounces or debunking of hate speech or assorted idiocies... hidden behind paywalls, as with the SHNP article. We can't really complain that "nazis are platformed" or that no-vaxxers are encouraged if most writing that debunks that bullshit is paywalled, while the bullshit is always free. That's why all my posts here are free, and I also ask for direct support.

1. What I mean by "it's your fault"

First and foremost, please realize that "Substack" here doesn't really mean "Substack". It means "Substack and any other platform that may start platforming nazis literally two days after you migrated there because Substack wouldn't stop platforming nazis". Complaints like "I’d rather not share a .com with those a-holes thanks." are just naive. ALL "platforms" have a "nazi problem" today or tomorrow, not just Substack. By definition and design. The only way to never "share a .com" that surely works is to have your own personal domain for your own personal cloud.

Second, please realize that if things have come to this point is because YOU, meaning the overwhelming majority of both authors and readers, couldn't be bothered to do the right thing, namely:

• as authors, to set up and maintain your own self-host domain for your own blog/newsletter/whatever

• as readers, to get all the "content" straight from the sources, via RSS feeds, or to at least CLICK to read the damned full text of posts shared on social media

• as internet users, to demand really accessible ways for authors and readers to do the above, instead of flocking from one platform or app to another

• also as internet users, to refuse social media that, if someone you follow posts a 3K words well researched essay on world hunger followed by a selfie of himself drunk, naked and making out with a cat, will show you only the selfie, unless the author pays to make the essay just as visible.

I can say all this because:

• walking this talk, that is self-hosting my own blog to allow everybody to read everything I write for free, without any censorship, profiling, or "sharing a .com with a-holes" is exactly what I have done for almost 15 years...

• before being forced to Substack, exactly by the fact (see here for details) that half the internet is happy with platforms that ghost every independent author, and the other half won't read the same authors, unless they are served exactly in way that are open by design to "nazi issues" like this

Had you shown the same rightful indignation on display now for lack of personal clouds for writers and everybody else, that I and others started proposing more than a decade ago, we wouldn't be here now.

Again, don’t take this personally! I know that you didn’t do it on purpose, that you may have never realized that certain issues existed before this reading post, that you could never have the time or skills to “code” your own website from scratch and a ton of other concrete reasons, all in good faith. But this doesn’t change the fact that we have certain problems because almost nobody took the time to get how the Web really works or should work, when it would have been much easier to fix it.

2. Nazis are evil, stupidly evil, and making money thanks to them is NOT good. Of course!

Everybody who still writes or believes stuff like (from SHNP) "Geniuses, in their most consequential forms, appear predominantly among Aryans" is at best an idiot, at worst a really dangerous idiot that nobody should follow or support.

If you say that Substack has the moral obligation to stop making money from any newsletter about nazis and similar topics, that is to stop allowing paid subscriptions, or actively making them more visible, I fully agree. Ditto for asking all the authors you currently pay to do as I already do, that is make all their content available for free while offering other support options, because that would hurt only Substack, not them. But all the other demands and expectations I've seen about this issue, however, seem as a minimum... very ill-thought-out to me.

Top: Authors leaving Substack for platforms “without nazis” (which ones?). Bottom: Readers leaving their authors who don’t leave or call out Substack

3. On leaving being impossible, or useless

• SHNP starts complaining that "[Substack]'s lax content moderation creates an opening for white nationalists eager to get their message out." Trouble is, "non-lax" content moderation at scale is impossible on the Internet, says, rightly but ironically, the same guy who later got upset because Substack would be a "Nazi bar"

• assuming that it would accomplish something, in practice "leaving Substack" is possible only for two classes of authors:

  • real hobbyists (whose exodus may very likely go unnoticed)

  • professionals who already have thousands of paying subscribers surely willing to follow them on other, possibly much more expensive platforms

Indeed, I saw someone saying if "big names pull away like Disney did from X, maybe they start rethinking their policy". Maybe. Or maybe if the big names leave, Substack will become less attractive for the masses, that is attract less potential subscribers of small authors, or start charging the same authors.

All the other authors, that is everybody who has just started or is still investing a lot of time and energies to build a community of readers that whose financial support, direct or not, they really need to pay the mortgage... All those authors have nowhere else that would be worthwhile to try.

Nowhere, that is, that would offer, with a sustainable effort, both greater "protection from nazi" and potential like "As a writer, I spent six years slogging away on Patreon, only to move to Substack and quadruple my subscriber number in under four months. Demands that authors throw away all that effort and opportunities, or boycotts of authors who don't are puerile (if not offensive, until those demands don't include a feasible alternative to Substack), because:

• leaving Substack for any other platform would mean to restart the same project anywhere else, that is a lot of effort, with ZERO guarantes that nazis or other equally troublesome people won't get there too after one week (and if you seriously think this couldn’t happen anywhere, any time, just tell yourself “X” until you faint)

• leaving Substack to self-host their own writing, newsletter, payment interface etc... would be even worst, in this age of platforms that actively HIDE almost all small voices, and readers who won't read anything that's outside platforms. Ask me how I know.

4. Conclusion: remain, to fight nazis in ways that make more sense

In general, virtue signalling can very easily become an exhausting, endless time drain, and often counterproductive too. Do not judge those who do less of it, especially if they're people you know absolutely nothingexcept that 1% of their lives that they put online. Above all, don't refuse to see the realities and limits of "platforms".

In this Substack case, demanding that nazi monetization stops or setting up alternative forms of compensation make sense, I already said that. Boycotting or calling out readers or authors who cannot leave or see the limits of such actions, instead, just doesn't strike me as informed adult behavior.

Nothing would make of Substack "THE (actually dangerous) nazi bar" instead of a huge bar where a few nazis happened to get a table, more than a mass exodus. Let me repeat it: leaving Substack en-masse because it doesn't kick out nazis and other nutcases will accomplish nothing except some combination of making said nutcases:

• become even more extremist and less challenged. If you doubt this, just look at everybody who still doesn't get why the MAGA crowds seem stronger now than 8 years ago

• become even less visible from the outside, that is much harder to stop before they get really dangerous, and much harder to redeem, exactly because they will stop seeing anything else (think Gab)

A better, more sensible way to fight nazis that doesn't refuse the realities of platforms is to fight nazis directly, in any legal way that you can afford, but after encircling them, instead of pushing them away. The right thing to do, not to mention the only one that could work at scale, is to not engage with extremists (except in this way when you absolutely must), and flood all the land around them with other content, all the rest of the time.

If you think this makes sense, please subscribe and share this post, instead of all-or-nothing open letters, and if you want to support my work but not Substack, read here. Thanks for your attention, and a great bonus tip (especially if you do want to get Substack's attention, rather than just looking virtuous), courtesy of S.M. Kellat:

"simply stick with e-mail delivery and avoid opening the Substack app as much as possible. I only want the content I have chosen. The app desperately wants to show me every crackpot lunatic that it can in addition to what I subscribe to."