kottke.orgApprovingly citing Musk/X and Zuck/Meta, Substack reiterates its commitment to support Nazis, antisemites, anti-vaxxers, transphobes, and homophobes in spreading disinformation & hate under the guise of “free speech”. https://read.substack.com/p/the-fight-for-free-speech-in-2025
Schalk Neethling@kottke After also reading the comments on the post, its time to bounce.
DroidPortFeels like Substack have been saying literally this exact same thing for years now.
What exactly has changed now that I'm missing here?
@DroidPort @kottke For me it is that they are doubling down, but even more, that they seem to be looking to two billionaires as a good example of what we want to encourage online.
I cannot see how the move from Meta is going to play out well for their end users. And as far as Musk is concerned, he does enough damage all by himself. I do not think I need to expand on that topic.
I agree on both points... I just don't see this as a doubling down from SubStack.
This has been their public position for years now.
I don't personally like it, but I can understand it, and at this point anybody who can't stomach it left long ago.
The weirdest thing about this is that it's still attracting attention from those who should've moved on SubStack years ago.
@DroidPort @kottke I wrote this after the previous exodus you are referring to - https://schalkneethling.substack.com/p/standing-our-ground-while-not-compromising
Since then I have had a lot of thoughts swim around in my head and I never really felt good about being on Substack anymore but, I have a small audience there and I can afford it (aka free).
However, I can no longer justify staying there and I would rather stop publishing and instead embrace the very vibrant indie, open standards open protocol based, federated internet. While I cannot afford to self-host all of these things myself, I will find ways around it, even if I have to build it myself in a way that opens up free or very low-cost hosting options.
Standing Our Ground While Not Compromising Our Principles
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post here on Substack titled, “On Leaving Substack“. As I often tend to do, I have been mulling this over in my head ever since the moment I posted it.
Thanks. I enjoyed this read