Substackers against Nazis
A collective letter to Substack leadership
Welcome to an unusual —and unfortunate — post here on Story Cauldron. Below is a letter to the Substack founders. Many publishers on this platform seek answers to questions about the platforming and monetizing of Nazis on Substack. We are publishing the letter on our individual Substacks today to raise visibility about this issue.
If you run a Substack, please consider sharing this letter today as a way to raise awareness of this issue. You can also comment here and on other Substacks sharing this message to show your support.
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 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. If this letter resonates, 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.
Here's my take on the issue of Nazis on Substack:
I generally applaud free speech. When platforms moderate content based on political views, it can be dangerous and a slippery slope.
The issue is that Substack is not only allowing content creators that engage in hate speech, but also profiting on that content. This has been going on for years now and Substack refuses to take action, making many others wary about being part of this platform. Given that many other platforms have drawn the line at hate speech and violence, it would be nice if Substack would address the contradictions between their Terms of Service and reality.
Specifically, at https://substack.com/content they state:
"Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition."
What this letter is saying is that some of these Nazi commentators are crossing that line and are not being held accountable. And many of us would like Substack's leadership to explain why this is happening.
I was not aware of this at all. So thank you for writing this. I find this deeply disturbing. I agree that content moderation is not always as clear cut as we may want it to be and sympathise with those who have to do that job. At the same time, I also believe, like you, that there are some absolutes that should not be permitted. Following your post, I have also read what Jonathan Katz has written and I intend to follow up with my own research on this as well. When I began writing on Substack, the platform had a fresh, clean feel. I am sorry that such monsters have appeared here. This is deeply distressing to me. Unless this changes, somehow, I will take my writing elsewhere.