I'm a leftist, get me out of here!

Hey folks,

Something a bit different today. I’m running behind on the issue anyway with finals and such, so expect the usual late on Friday. I signed up to be part of this Substackers Against Nazis letter that you may or may not have seen floating around, but to be honest the whole thing is well past the last straw for me, so I’m planning on moving to Buttondown in a few weeks. You shouldn’t need to do anything if you’re already subscribed, but your support makes a huge difference — frankly, this is at best a neutral endeavor re: my wallet and switching to a service where the payment is upfront instead of tithed from your subscriptions is quite scary for me; I’m a broke college student. I’m planning some special coverage incentives for getting more than a certain number of new paid subscribers (…fiction?!) — more on that after the move, but rest assured you’ll still get me closer to those goals if you subscribe now.

Frankly, I don’t like publishing anything to this feed that isn’t The Regular Thing — the whole point of this newsletter for me is that it is what it is, and absolutely nothing else. But come on. We can’t have Nazis in the walled garden with us. That’s ridiculous.

So without further ado, here’s the letter.

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 on 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.

Okay, that’s it. By the way, man does that official Substack newsletter suck ass. It ups itself in idiocy with every issue. So I have little faith.

See you Friday. Peace and love. Free Palestine.