Glenn FleishmanPeople keep making new Substack newsletters. I keep pointing out politely that the founders are terrible enablers of transphobes, hate speech, vaccine denial, and more. They reap their reward from fear, hate, and disinformation.
It's a technically and economically great platform and a terrible moral choice to have to make.
John Gruber@glennf Do you feel the same way about WordPress? I feel like Substack is really just a CMS, not a publisher.
Jason Kottke@gruber @glennf They pay writers to write exclusively for their platform, sometimes in advance. They offer free legal services for writers. They promote their writers’ publications. They’re closer to Buzzfeed or HuffPo (or even NYT) than to WP. But they desperately want people to think they’re a platform, so they can get away with publishing profitable bigotry and dangerous misinformation and keep collecting their cut of the RW grift with minimal moderational effort.
@jkottke @glennf But are these right wingers among those Substack pays in advance? I recall reading about this a year or two back and it seemed like the answer was no.
I guess I do agree though that Substack occupies some heretofore new territory, somehow both publisher and platform. Much less of a top-down editorial structure than regular publishers, but much more of such structure than platforms like WP or Ghost, etc.
thesupermikey@gruber yes. Bari Weiss publication seems to be funded directly by substack
@thesupermikey The Free Press is on the right side of the political spectrum but I see it as very far from rightwing. Also, is The Free Press in Substack’s “pro” tier that’s paid in advance?
@gruber less then a month ago they ran a huge story slut shaming women basketball for taking NIL money because they happened to be attractive.
It’s entire goal was to point out they only get money because of their apparence. It argued their only value is their appearance. Why else would anyone give money to female athletes?
Seeems pretty right wing to me.