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Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content (www.theverge.com)

submitted 11 months ago by breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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.”

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 39 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

On one hand, Substack is in it's rights and as a journalistic organization, they are in the right.

The issue is: Once you serve a Nazi in your bar, you become a Nazi bar. This is no longer a marginalized viewpoint you can ignore. Its actively recruiting and frightening. Inaction is enabling. Substack is going to become shitty, and fast. They will lose high engagement users, first when the ones who protested pile out for another platform and then quickly when the quality dips.

Also, their cavalier attitude will change when Stripe steps in.

[–] nukeworker10@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago

You can contact Stripe at the link to let them know about the company they are associating with.

[–] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

How is Stripe associated with Substack? (I'm out of the loop here)

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

I an guessing they do their payment processingt

[–] OmanMkII@aussie.zone 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I was too, but sounds like the TL;DR is they're the supporting infrastructure which substack uses:

Substack’s team built its service on Stripe’s infrastructure, which bypassed significant investment in engineering. By leaning on Stripe’s expertise, Substack could scale quickly and focus its energy on fulfilling its promise to writers. The company offers better services because it can continue to lean on Stripe and direct extra bandwidth toward customers.

https://stripe.com/ae/customers/substack

[–] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago

Thanks, that definitely explains it better than simply being a payment processor.