@thomasfuchs "but if we don't host the Nazis who will?? 🥺 think about all those Nazis who would have to run their own fringe servers that would be hard to discover!" ~ probably them
@thomasfuchs This is an insane take. They're not the ACLU defending political speech from the government, they're platforming NAZIs. That is some crazy-crazy techbro brainworms.
Up front, I neither read, nor write on substack (I spend more time with dev.to which is just my particular bent).
But:
1) As a neutral bystander, I'm with Hamish on the censorship front, though there are of course always limits. I will not ever, however, draw my limits on the basis of banal labels like Nazi or WTF you like smearing other people with but on slightly more objective criteria like actually calls to violence. Any publication with that content needs to be pulled down fast. As long as we're civil I don't right care what your views you, it's a dangerous thing to try and start deciding on the basis of those who should be able to stand on a given (virtual) soapbox and efforts to do so cause as much trouble as they purport to solve (we could apply the pathetically inadequate label "Nazi" to them - Godwin would feel vindicated)
2) When I read this: https://thehypothesis.substack.com/p/heres-why-substacks-scam-worked-so my main concern is indeed the lack of transparency. If they are pumping money into Pro writers, I would like them to be transparent about who is getting up front money and who isn't on their platform. Any other venture I know would market that as a badge of honour, the Pro writers could have a big badge on their page for example.
3) Comparisons with nudity have some merit indeed, and alas we have a way to go there given most of these platforms are US based - easily one of the most prudish and conservative of western cultures alas. There is a line to draw (explicit pornography) but nudity itself could and should well be normalised (specifically to counter the effect that its suppression only serves to are in no way endangered sexualise it). Children are in no way endangered by nudity. They are endagered by the blatant sexualisation of everything. So I'd concur that substack (or any other service) if it preaches and wants to stand against censorship can actually perform consistently and well in this space by permitting casual nudity.
The problem of course always emerges with curation and where the lines are drawn, as they should be in both the arena of calls to violence and the endless sexualisation of everything. Such curation tends to be a) expensive and b) inescapably subjective, and there is no clear, unambiguous line to hold.
@thomasfuchs thing is, shame, social isolation, and economic devaluation DO work. It may not change minds, but it does make it socially unacceptable in public spheres. These tech guys really don’t understand psychology, society, or much else.
@thomasfuchs Amish needs to understand that -- as someone else once said -- if you let one "peaceful" Nazi drink at your bar, eventually they will bring a "peaceful" Nazi friend, and so on and so forth until suddenly what you have is a Nazi bar and it's no longer peaceful.
@thomasfuchs Yeah, I do not understand #Substack’s “we do not censor” position at all. Well, I do (it’s about money) as they allow Nazi’s but censor porn, the latter which they do to avoid being deplatformed by #Apple (the latter removed #Tumblr years ago due to porn).
So maybe instead of pressuring authors, we should contact Apple, who has very little tolerance for companies favoring Nazis.