With respect to @caseynewton and his colleagues at Platformer, it's long past time to fish or cut bait with Substack.
The platform isn't at a crossroads. It has made entirely clear that helping Nazis monetize their extremism is part of the business model, and that while even mild "porn" is unacceptable, the worst kind of extremism is allowed. Substack is a vile publishing partner, period.
Platformer is at the crossroads, and it needs to turn elsewhere. Now.
@dangillmor I find it a little suspect that he doesn’t mention that Substack paid a host of writers a stack of money to move there, making explicit the lie that they’re a neutral platform. Judging by the writers who copped to getting paid it is fairly obvious what their editorial leanings are. So this latest development is not completely surprising.
(I would respect Substack more if it declared that it would host -- and assist the monetization of -- any legal speech, no matter how disgusting it might be.)
@dangillmor I'd be up for porn, it works for Reddit, you have to go looking for it but it's there. Monetizing Nazis is a whole different ball game. The chose not to have adult content and chose to have Nazi content.
I'm feeling this too. Two years ago Substack defended prominent conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers profiting on the platform by saying that "the presence of writers with whom we strongly disagree” was a “necessary precondition for creating more trust in the information ecosystem as a whole.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/27/substack-misinformation-anti-vaccine/
Nine months ago Nilay Patel got this response from CEO Chris Best on Decoder when asking if they would allow overt racism in Substack Notes: https://vimeo.com/817611949/a001a450c1
Substack haven't been hiding this stance. They've been enforcing it clearly, consistently and in the open for years.
@dangillmor@caseynewton The phrase, "fish or cut bait" means either catch the fish or help someone else do it by managing detail work... It does not mean, "Be a part of it or leave"!
‘…the meaning of "cut bait" is sometimes taken to mean cutting one's fishing line, and giving up on the fishing. As a result, the meaning of the expression has changed over time to imply "act now or stand down". This variation is now so common that it widely appears as the first entry in dictionaries and other reference materials.’
Add comment