Platformer Leaves Substack Over Stance on Pro-Nazi Content
Casey Newton, the writer behind the popular tech newsletter Platformer, announced on Thursday that the newsletter is leaving Substack following developments on the company’s policies on pro-Nazi content and other violent ideologies.
The decision, which Newton notes was made with much consideration, comes weeks after an expose on The Atlantic brought to the attention of Substack authors and subscribers that the platform has been hosting and monetizing pro-Nazi and white supremacist newsletters.
In response to the article, over 200 authors wrote Substack’s founders a letter, demanding an explanation. The closest they got to it was a response from co-founder Hamish McKenzie, who tried to justify their hands-off approach to content and said that while they also hate Nazis, they “don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.”
It was at this point, Newton wrote on Thursday, that he “started to think Platformer would leave Substack. I’m not aware of any major US consumer internet platform that does not explicitly ban praise for Nazi hate speech, much less one that welcomes them to set up shop and start selling subscriptions.”
Newton decided to get his “own sense of the problem.” He reached out to “journalists and experts in hate speech and asked them to share their own lists of Substack publications that, in their view, advanced extremist ideologies,” which he, along with colleagues Zoë Schiffer and Lindsey Choo reviewed. They then sent their own list to Substack.
“In the end, we found seven that conveyed explicit support for 1930s German Nazis and called for violence against Jews, among other groups,” Newton wrote. “Substack removed one before we sent it to them. The others we sent to the company in a spirit of inquiry: will you remove these clear-cut examples of pro-Nazi speech? The answer to that question was essential to helping us understand whether we could stay.”
While this was happening, Substack continued to receive backlash, with some publications already leaving the platform. Eventually, the company gave in and deleted five out of the six remaining that Newton and his colleagues at Platformer identified. But not before leaking Platformer’s findings to another “friendlier publication.”
“The point of this leak, I believe, was to make the entire discussion about hate speech on Nazis on Substack appear to be laughably small: a mountain made out of a molehill by bedwetting liberals,” Newton said, emphasizing that 1) the list was “not a comprehensive review of hate speech on the platform,” and it was not about those specific publications per se, but “whether Substack would publicly commit to proactively removing pro-Nazi material.”
Newton then asked to hear from Platformer’s subscribers. And the answers were clear. The community “pointed out that Substack had not changed its policy; that it did not commit explicitly to removing pro-Nazi material; that it seemed to be asking its own publications to serve as permanent volunteer moderators; and that in the meantime all of the hate speech on the platform remains eligible for promotion in Notes, its weekly email digest, and other algorithmically ranked surfaces.”
Platformer will move to Ghost, which Newton described as a nonprofit and open-source publishing platform. He says subscribers will need not do anything as accounts will be ported over to the new platform.
“Ghost founder and CEO John O’Nolan committed to us that Ghost’s hosted service will remove pro-Nazi content, full stop.”
Information for this story was found via Platformer, and the sources and companies mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to the organizations discussed. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
