Mike Masnick: I wrote about Substack, Nazis, free speech, private property, and reputation. Not exactly in that order, but kinda. www.techdirt.com/2023/12/26/s...

I wrote about Substack, Nazis, free speech, private property, and reputation. Not exactly in that order, but kinda. www.techdirt.com/2023/12/26/s...

Substack Turns On Its ‘Nazis Welcome!’ Signwww.techdirt.com Back in April Substack founder/CEO Chris Best gave an interview to Nilay Patel in which he refused to answer some fairly basic questions about how the company planned to handle trust & safety i…

Their claim that it is ok to have Nazis because a reader has to choose to read Nazis is completely contradicted by their claim that they can't allow porn because that would overwhelm the platform.

Another banger. We need to normalize thinking about "social media websites" as "somebody else's living room," especially in the context of xkcd #1357 (which stays being an invaluable teaching tool)

Free Speechxkcd.com

I think Ken makes the good point that “Nazis” being allowed on Substack doesn’t interfere with other people’s user experiences the same way it does on Twitter where Elon gave people willing to pay a boost to the top while simultaneously making it hard to see and interact with people I like /1

It may have if Notes had taken off, but Notes didn’t pan out. I suppose it also can for writers with open commenting on posts, but I haven’t had to deal with that so I won’t try to speak for those authors. As you have noted (and gamified) moderation decisions are subjective and time/money intensive

The less that having shitbags on your platform interferes with the user experience of other people, I think it is more defensible not to take a lighter touch with moderation and focus on things like non-pornography, which will get you sideways with credit card processors.

That “not” shouldn’t be in there, but you get the gist of it.

I believe I've more or less said all that as well?

Absolutely, especially with the CloudFare moderation decisions.

I’m a little disappointed that this wasn’t written on substack.

I need to leave Substack, but I wish the platform wasn't as good as it is. It's like a Nazi bar that has the best beer in the city. It's still not an excuse to go to the Nazi bar, but man, it's tough to give up the good beer.

Great article, I was wondering what you think about @kenwhite.bsky.social's "ballroom" metaphor. You seemed to allude to it in your comparison with Facebook and Reddit.

It's always rung hollow when people like Musk & Best defend Nazi's speech as 'free speech' on platforms. Nazis/bigots/etc running free pushes away & silences minorities. Musk & Best prioritize Nazi speech because they feel it is more important than minority speech.

(plus a non zero chance Best and Musk at least in part agree with the bigots who's speech they insist on protecting above marginalized groups...)

Very well said all around.

When I first moved to NYC there were two types of newsstands, sleazy ones that sold porn and regular ones that didn’t.

Hypocrite Motherfuckers—"Porn is a no-no, but Nazis? Just peachykeen!" 👍 Yes, I mean both Substack AND credit card processors.... ...which, of course, @mmasnick.bsky.social said, with less cursing, in his Techdirt piece. 🫣

"protecting freedom of expression, even when it hurts" so, we're all agreed on making it hurt, right?

I find this a persuasive piece. But do you have any thoughts about how this logic applies to an educational institution? There are people out there who apply the nazi-bar logic and conclude: "If you allow 'intifada' to be spoken on your campus, you become the Intifada Campus." Is that fair?

Universities allow both of those words to be said on campus. That’s very different from giving Nazis a paid platform.

I think I agree, but I'm wondering how we define the difference. Say I — a university professor — give a lecture about Palestinian liberation struggles, and I'm paid an honorarium from Ohio State. So I get a paid platform. Is the difference simply… that the intifada is defensible, and nazis not?

I mean, I do happen to agree the intifada is defensible, but I also think we have some intuition that universities are *supposed* to host a wide range of ideas, including intensely unpopular ones. If someone said "any school that allows BDS arguments is now the BDS Campus," I think we'd demur.

The difference is that ideally, as an educator, you’re teaching people about a topic like that, not arguing in favor of being one. I learned an awful lot about Nazis in college, but nobody was saying Nazism was a good idea.

If you teach people how to approach subjects with rational, educated arguments, they can figure out on their own whether a philosophy/group/movement is defensible. Ideally, anyway. But “you should be this/believe this” is not education; it’s indoctrination.

I'm happy with that answer, so let's stop there. I think there are some people in universities who might not be 100% comfortable with the line you're drawing between education & advocacy. But it has precedents going back to Max Weber, and gets us out of a lot of dilemmas. I like it.

Etsy banned the “intifada”, so yeah it’s fair well actually it isn’t because substack obviously hasn’t?

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