Substack has decided that they're ok with platforming Nazis, and as such, have become (if they knew it or not!) the Nazi Bar. So far, the explanations from Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie and CEO Chris Best have bordered on the insane:
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.
The mass exodus of independent publishers from Substack to literally any other platform is on, with most authors I've seen on Bluesky opting to migrate over to Ghost.
Tonight, one of the biggest Substack publications opted to move: Casey Newton's Platformer.
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From the above The Verge article:
The issue has been building up over the past several weeks. After The Atlantic published an article saying that Substack had been hosting and profiting from pro-Nazi publications, more than 200 Substack writers wrote an open letter to the company asking it to clarify its position. On December 21st, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie said it would not remove or demonetize Nazi content.
“This was the moment where I started to think Platformer would need to leave Substack,” Newton writes. “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.”
Just a friendly reminder that it's always ok to take Indiana Jones' advice:
