Hi all, This Is Not A Grift — a newsletter you probably forgot you signed up to — would like to break character to tell you we are leaving Substack.
It has become clear Substack allows Nazis — TERFs, climate change deniers, and all manner of other terrible people — to spread misinformation and hatred as well as profit from that hatred. By doing nothing to remove, and also algorithmically supporting these ghouls to grow their following, Substack makes money from this hatred.
This Is Not A Grift was set up as a satirical comment on the grindcore hashtag startup life. But even a satirical Substack cannot, in good conscience, continue to use a platform which is itself turning more and more into a grift: skimming their 10 percent off of the worst people in the world.
posed the question to his subscribers on whether Webworm should move off Substack. This is my comment (with some slight edits for spelling / grammar / clarity, original is here):Move.
The argument sunlight disinfects hate speech is categorically incorrect. Arguing with Nazis didn’t work in Weimar Germany. They, and other fascist groups, were allowed to set up their own newspapers and physical newsletters. That allowed their ideas to spread with a veneer of respectability. It also allowed them to start getting money to fund more propaganda and from there organise the hatred they whipped up. We know how that ended up for Jewish people, homosexuals, and other groups.
If we rewind 90 years and Substack was a printing press with a mail order service and you had to go in and queue up with Nazis, would you feel comfortable standing in line next to a dude who hates you for not being straight?
You walk over to the owner of the printing press as thousands of copies of a newsletter with the headline “TRUTH ABOUT THE JEWISH CONSPIRACY” are being printed out behind him and he’s there smiling saying no no no it’s all okay, and as you’re talking the Nazi who you were in queue next to hands the owner an envelope full of cash (sourced from other terrible people) and the owner doesn’t say anything as the Nazi spits on you as he leaves.
That is literally what is happening.
Substack is profiting off of hate speech. Substack is knowingly empowering Nazis to grow their networks and leverage the respectability of the platform to gain credibility. Nazis (and other violent horrible people) are crowdfunding their propaganda machine and that cash will then be diverted into supporting other horrendous things.
And all the while Substack sits there claiming some sort of moral high ground as the Nazis do their Nazi shit and start spreading their ideas to bring in more paid subscribers so that substack can profit off hate speech to pay back their VC funded investors.
In the past 10 years we’ve seen a massive explosion of online misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech. Nazis are already tapping into disaffected conspiracy communities to gain followers and supporters. In New Zealand, in the aftermath of the rightwing terror attack on Christchurch mosques, there are still conspiracy delusionists primed and ready for some nice Nazi to pill them. In Melbourne, Nazis feel so empowered they will come out in broad daylight to support TERFs and even openly sing racist songs on trains they commandeer.
We cannot appease Nazis. The only correct answer is to de-platform them and hound them so their ideas cannot spread, counter protest, and perhaps — if it really comes down to it — punch ‘em in the face.
Why? Because it’s not enough to be neutral when it comes to hate.
Another commenter on David’s post brought up Karl Popper's idea about the paradox of intolerance1. To put it simply: tolerant societies must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
Substack claims to be acting in the name of free speech, but free speech cannot exist if other people are afraid to talk because Nazis (TERFs, etc) are literally threatening people of colour, Jewish people, trans-people, etc with violence, rape, murder, genocide. This is the paradox in any discussion about free speech that these right wing reprobates lean into because it gives them cover to make the other side seem unreasonable.
You know what is unreasonable? Being a fuckin’ Nazi.
Nazis in 1920s/1930s Germany, and fascists elsewhere in the first half of the 20th Century, didn’t just take power because they were violent, they were helped along the way by the quiet acquiescence of large portions of the population.
There is a book called They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 which Robert Evans (who also has a Substack at
) used as a source for an episode of Behind the Bastards podcast. You can listen to that episode here for a very good overview.TLDR: by doing nothing in the 1920s and 1930s ordinary people, or ‘Little Nazis’, paved the way for Hitler and the Holocaust.
The ‘Little Nazis’ were the people who equivocated on matters because it was easier to either not take a position or stick their fingers in their ears, smush their eyes closed and pretend everything was a-ok because it was easy.
And this happens to Smart People™ too, which is why it worries me when yesterday journalist Bernard Hickey (
) wrote about staying on Substack — and I paraphrase here:“I didn’t look, but I don’t see a problem.”
You can see what Bernard actually wrote here.
Bernard, mate, it took Joshua approximately 60 minutes of searching on Substack to find about +100 reprehensible publications. You have a huge following. You call yourself a journalist. Your stance on this does journalism a disservice. Do better, man.
Side note: you should read Josh’s post over on the (after finishing this one) and then signup to The Bad News Letter on Ghost.
But look, I get it. It’s easy to stay on Substack. It’s easy to ignore the rising tide of racism and intolerance. It’s easy to put your head in the sand and get on with it. Life is already hard without another existential threat looming over you.
But here’s the thing: it’s easy until it isn’t.
These ‘Little Nazis’ had the opportunity early on to disrupt the Nazi machine. They didn’t take it, which doesn’t necessarily make them bad people, but we need to learn from their lesson. Sometimes history doesn’t so much repeat as it does echo. Our situation today is eerily similar to 100 years ago, even down to the recent pandemic. We have massive income inequality, ongoing multiple conflicts between major powers, people are disengaged, inflation is spiking. It’s all fucking doom and gloom.
But I’m not asking Substack to solve racism (Nazis, TERFs, climate change denial etc).
I am asking Substack to not tolerate intolerance and to, when it is reported, take prompt action to remove it from their platform in line with their existing policy.
And that message — Nazis are not tolerated here — is an important message in and of itself.
Nazis are always going to Nazi, but taking a small stand now can stop a bigger problem in the future. Nazis are cowardly chickenshits, but the more they feel empowered the more violent they will get.
If Substack continues to allow Nazis to publish, distribute hate and to algorithmically create opportunities for people to get pulled into their orbit, all the while providing those Nazis with a steady income stream Substack contributes to and benefits from the (very probable) violent action that will (and is already) happening.
This is Substack's opportunity to stand up, because being neutral is not an option when it comes to Nazis.
Free speech cannot exist if other people are afraid to talk. This is the inherent paradox at the heart of free speech discourse and it's the exact reason why rightwing grifters lean into free speech as a concept.
Also, I’m not asking you to do much. I need you to be aware that there is most definitely a problem and you do have agency to resisit this current wave of fascism, even if it is just supporting your favourite Substackers to move off this platform.
What I am asking is that you stand against Nazis. When you see a Nazi doing Nazi shit shout till you can’t shout any more to let people know that it’s not okay. Same goes for other shitty behaviour from TERFs, and all the other Nazi aligned shitty things (eg Flat Earthers). If you have time: protest and counter-protest. Join your local Campaign Against Racism and Fascism or financially support the people who are fighting against these shit heels. There are lots of ways you can resist.
I’m giving you permission to be intolerant of intolerance.
I’m pretty sure, given this is only the second post and there are only 54 subscribers, most of you know who I am and how to get hold of me. If not, you can get in touch with me via this email address. I’ll keep this post up for one month and then I will close this account for good. I have no plans to start another newsletter but I am an occasional contributor to a number of other publications, so no doubt this won’t be the last you hear from This Is Not A Grift.
Stay safe, stay sane.
Karl Popper was a pretty cool dude. He moved from Austria to New Zealand in the 1930s to escape fascism (he tried to go to Australia but was refused entry because of his Jewish ancestry 🙃). While in New Zealand he wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies in which the ‘paradox of intolerance’ is mentioned as a footnote.