Substackers Against Nazis
A collective letter to Substack leadership
I’m proud to sign onto this open letter to Substack’s founders, seeking answers to questions about the platforming and monetizing of Nazis. First of all I have a long history of hosting civil discourse, including civil disagreement on the Internet. BlogHer was a pioneer in defining community guidelines to allow for such disagreement and diversity of perspective, much of it thanks to my co-founder Lisa Stone’s original draft guidelines, which needed little improvement. But I have also long made the argument that freedom of speech does not equal either freedom from consequences OR freedom to monetize. The first amendment is about your protection from your government; it is not about some inalienable right to say whatever you want wherever you want and make money from it. And my issue with so many of the leaders of social platforms is that they ignore their own terms of service to allow this monetized hate speech to continue. Just follow your own damn guidelines, even when it’s tough. Even when it costs you your 10%. Finally, I will quote, as I so often do, fellow early Web 2.0 denizen Anil Dash who said, “If your site is full of assholes; it’s your fault.” So this letter to Substack’s founders is my attempt to get them to accept the conscious choices they are making to not just platform but make money themselves from the assholes. I hope that by joining this effort, we can see some true responsiveness to these concerns. -Elisa
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.