I understand but lament the choice so many thoughtful people have made to publish their newsletters on the odious Substack. Surely they recognize that they are, at least indirectly, helping some of the worst people in the world spread and monetize malignant views.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vaba7tf7ylt2kaavf4t2kotp/post/3mjfo4h6u7s2f
I guess this is the Nazi bar analogy, and I sort of get that. But I have a few questions.
First, and I know this is a bit reductio ad absurdum, but bear with me, should we boycott comcast because they let Andrew Tate use their wires? If not, where is the dividing line?
Second, I guess the argument here is that they are platforming an asshole, and using their non-asshole bloggers as leverage. Why doesn't this work in both directions? Can't I plunder Andrew Tate's followers?
A related question is, given that substack actually appears to work better than its competitors, how much does it cost us to not use it, both in terms of ease of use and in terms of reach.
And how much does it cost us to use it, in terms of the damage that their asshole users cause?
Suppose the answer is that the cost of not using it outweighs the cost of using it. Should we still not use it? If so, why?
I ask these questions because I know how easy it is to use substack, and also how easy it is to use alternatives like Ghost. I'm actually trying to decide what to do about this—this isn't an idle set of questions.
Right now, it feels a lot like not using substack is similar to not flying to conferences. Airlines are actively harmful in the world, but we don't really have a viable alternative. Should we silence ourselves by not flying?
A lot of people I admire, e.g. Amanda Litman, Anand Ghiridaradas and Waleed Shahid, use substack. Why are you right and they are wrong?
@abhayakara I always just do the best I can, it's impossible to boycott or move on from everything with shitty people on them or running them.
I don't use any Meta products for example to the point I have a pihole to try and fully block their tracking. I still use Google though they've proven time and time again to do shitty things. I have moved from Chrome and experiment with other search engines, but still heavily use their office suite and Gmail.
We quit Target but still use Walmart who is just as bad but the devil you know I guess.
All that to say, for me when a company hits a breaking point where I no longer feel comfortable, that's when I leave.
It's an imperfect world and we're humans, don't beat yourself up to much about this stuff.
The only quibble I would make with this is that if you are doing what makes sense, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it.
I've been a U.S. citizen my whole life, and my country has engaged in many wars I find reprehensible.
Should I have renounced my citizenship? No. It's my country, no more or less than theirs.
Is there no alternative to Walmart? The alternative they closed for me was mine. I want it back, but meanwhile I have to live. It's not wrong to choose to live.
How this relates to substack is of course still a matter for debate: there _are_ alternatives. But each of the alternatives I've found is (a lot) more work and has less reach, as far as I can tell.
Of the lot of them, Patreon is probably the best, but they seem to be wandering down the enshittification highway, so we'll see.
it's not that complicated
andrew tate is a piece of shit
that substack platforms him is repugnant enough for many people that they just won't use substack
some won't care. well, fuck them
some worry that the air they breathe contains some molecules that were once also breathed by stalin, so they'll stop breathing. yeah these people are a bit much: you follow coherent connections, and apply pressure where it is worth it
it's a balance in life, always
@benroyce @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
no perfect answer but imo "connections" is not enough. this is what most of the fedi gets wrong re refusing to federate with servers with users with bad opinions. moderate unwanted tagging harshly like we do spam, but allow chosen connections like we do browsing.
more meaningful concerns are funding and promotion. Substack both has a financial relationship and chooses to spread the ideas of shitty people. avoiding paying taxes for wars would be nice.
@wjmaggos @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
william you're responding to an account that purposefully seeks out, mocks, and goads vatniks into saying things i can report them on to get them suspended
nuke all vatnik accounts
and any server that won't nuke them, nuke the server
period
it's not "bad opinions" william
it's malicious assholes vomiting kremlin lies for ethnofascism and imperialism
someone who says "avoiding paying taxes for wars would be nice" should be able to get behind that need
@benroyce @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
we strongly disagree re doing this but we both know this. probably not worth debating it again.
@wjmaggos @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
indeed i consider your position naive at best
bigots and prideful ignorants have zero place on the fediverse
any server that won't act on them needs to be excised from the fediverse
i cannot fathom why you don't understand that this imperative is the bedrock of the ethos of a community you enjoy being part of, while not understanding what it takes to protect that community
if shitwits want to vomit their hate somewhere, they have twitter. fuck them
@benroyce @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
the fedi should be as open as the internet and as protective as email with spam blocking software. this best balances interactions we each decide we want with helping everyone avoid those they don't want. my community includes my family members who have opinions I hate. your prescription is a very small fedi that feeds groupthink. see how Dems and the further left vehemently disagree re Gaza and so many other issues.
@wjmaggos @abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
if you define excluding bigoty as "groupthink" i am disgusted
and fuck your family member
you want to have fruitless discussions with racist uncle at the dinner table have at it
not here
your "standard" will not apply to the fediverse. your "standard" fucking sucks. it's a gateway for bad faith hateful sadism
that you don't understand that is shameful
we're not having it
you need to make peace with this william: you're not going to win this argument
:( he's usually less aggressive in arguing this view.
you don't have to argue on my behalf. if someone comes in with some easy outrage then the instablock, fuck them. it's insincere and has no meaning
except "bad people" do change and I have had information shared with me by them that corrected my misunderstandings. doesn't your electoral strategy involve voting in the general for people we may find repugnant but still better than the other person who would otherwise win?
bigots can change but they rarely do
last time we had this discussion you linked to daryl davis as well. i responded as i will now: i admire daryl but daryl is an extreme outlier
we're not here to provide therapy for bigots
people here want to converse without bigotry polluting their timeline
you've decided unilaterally that *your* quixotic goal of curing bigots is what should be here
no
open a twitter account and tilt at windmills there
we're not having it here
that's not my goal. it's a place where we can all talk to whoever we want and avoid who we want. you seem to think you know who should be let in and who shouldn't. haven't I seen many here don't like you supporting voting for Dems cause the party isn't left enough? you'll get voted off the island eventually.
because there are ranges of acceptable behavior
if people have disagreements about politics on the left, this can be great venom and outrage, but it is valid discourse. i can be quite angry with someone, but i have no right to silence them
meanwhile, there is no valid discourse with bigotry. nothing is gained. so silencing their voice is not acceptable, it's preferable
why do you want the fediverse to devolve into pathetic endless useless arguments with hateful morons?
and i know your response already
"there is no valid discourse with bigotry. nothing is gained"
yes, in some rare instances, you can cure a bigot
great!
go do that
twitter is full of these fuckwits
engage some. do your thing. enjoy. i wish you great success
but you will not unilaterally decide against the opinion of the fediverse that this place is going to be polluted with their endless evil stupid bad faith nonsense, whatever noble goal you have
how does them posting here pollute anything if you never get tagged (we should moderate hard for unwanted tagging and block servers that allow their users to do that) or the people you follow never boost it? the magic of no algos. the web is full of hateful websites we'll never see etc.
my family members should be able to be here, seeing the lefty stuff I boost that might change their opinions over time. not stuck in places with algos that reinforce misinfo and hate etc.
@wjmaggos @benroyce @TheStoneDonkey
Spam blocking software is a _really_ bad model. I not want that here. Free speech has to be balanced with consent. If I do not consent to listen to some asshole spew hatred, I should be able to avoid hearing that.
Anti-spam doesn't accomplish this, because it's porous: assholes can keep changing their identity to get past the filter.
I should be able to simply say "no, I don't want to hear from random strangers." That's not anti-spam. That's consent.
@abhayakara @benroyce @TheStoneDonkey
I don't understand. I'm a random stranger to you. assuming that's in place, how do you ever decide to see my reply without ever seeing it?
I use spam as an example because imo fedi is like browsing plus email. we want free choice to see what we want but also want help with unwanted intrusions.
yes the jerks can switch servers which is why servers should also be able to block servers that don't try to prevent their server from being used this way.
@benroyce @[email protected] @abhayakara I'm not sure why you're taking this out of the thread, I don't think anyone was suggesting a like of bigots or wanting to give a voice here.
I'm certain there's businesses you use daily that still use Twitter, have you dropped them all?
Like I said it's an imperfect world, I don't use substack for the reasons you're arguing, the same reason I don't use Facebook or Twitter, I can't stand the people who run or are on those platforms.
That said it's impossible to divorce yourself of every platform tied to a shitty person, you do the best you can and move on with your life.
No one in that thread was advocating turning the fediverse into a cesspool, if anything he was trying to determine his best path forward which at least shows some forethought.
I don't think we disagree about Andrew Tate. My question is, what specifically are they doing to platform him? Like, did they incentivize him to post on substack? If so, that's a good argument against using substack.
Right now I see them treating him neutrally, which I don't love, but again, so does Comcast (or my ISP, Odido). Should I quit Odido?
So I'm asking, what specifically are they doing. I'm asking because I haven't found a clear answer by searching.
"My question is, what specifically are they doing to platform him?"
what?
andrew tate is on substack
they platformed him
🤷
so i don't understand your point
you don't platform sex traffickers
period
well, you can:
and then a large group of people will decide that this is unacceptable, as they should, and leave your platform
So your answer is that they are not censoring him. That's what you mean by platforming.
Let me know when you cancel your ISP connection.
what?
an ISP is not a website
you're arguing "trains can carry nazis, so don't ride trains"
it's a completely incoherent analogy
I think they are similar, but not the same. We think of ISPs as "common carriers," which is a term that goes back to the days of the railroads, and was really important to making interstate commerce work at that time. It carried forward to the telcos and to some extent the ISPs.
So in a sense the question is, is substack a common carrier? I think you can definitely make an argument that they are not, but you can also say they are. Neither is obviously correct.
i think a website and an ISP are different enough concepts that the argument doesn't hold
Okay, but my retort here is "why do you think that." No need to actually answer this question unless you want to, but that's the thing I'm getting at. For me it's nowhere near as obvious as it seems to be for you.
I think the bending point would be whether it's a community or a public space. If it's a community, imposing community standards makes sense. If it's a public space, then stopping abuse makes sense, but stopping disagreeable speech feels too far.
if your argument depends on treating ISPs and websites as the same sort of thing, i don't know what to say
And that is the essence of the problem, isn't it. It feels different to you, and I completely understand and respect that, and I even feel the same way. I just don't trust the feeling very much.
Two points Molly made connected the most for me:
1. Can't recommend people on other sites (not sure how that's enforced, mind you).
2. Can't accept payments elsewhere (again, does that mean if I also have Ghost I can't accept payments there?)
no, the essence of the problem is substack platforming sex traffickers and nazis
your complaints are valid, but your complaints have nothing to do with the real problem here, which creates the need to leave substack, leading to your complaints
the platforming of bigotry is the root issue
In a sense yes. But for me the common carrier question still holds. I follow several people on substack. I've never, as a result of this, had to read posts by sex traffickers or nazis. That feels more like "common carrier" than "community" to me.
E.g. on Facebook, which I left years ago for obvious reasons, I couldn't _not_ encounter nazis. Same thing on Twitter. So that's a very different experience.
ted, i can't wrap my mind around this "a website is a common carrier" assertion
i'm sorry, but it's simply false
and yes: nazis chase away decent people. from any platform. and thus, substack's future fate is that of twitter and facebook
BTW, I really appreciate the constructive engagement here. This is a hard topic.
BTW, to be clear, I think your position here is 100% valid. I was just trying to figure out what it was.
I don't hold the same position, but I don't 100% disagree with you either. I just think it's a harder problem than people are letting on. I'd much rather hear from Amanda Litman on Substack than not hear from her at all, e.g.
so we try to convince amanda to move elsewhere
show amanda this:
https://www.citationneeded.news/substack-to-self-hosted-ghost/
The thing is, how much of Amanda's time are you willing to burn on this? It's her time. We've been talking about consent. Doesn't she get to consent (or not) to this?
I think the reason people like Amanda use substack is because they've already thought about this and made the decision that works for them. So me demanding that they revisit it seems disrespectful and, indeed, ungrateful. Holy shit is she doing a lot of good for democracy right now.
amanda can choose between following molly white off substack and deal with that hassle
or amanda can choose to lose subscribers because she's still on substack
both choices have difficulties
and?
life is full of such choices
i'm not forcing her to do anything. i'm merely noting a choice exists, and i'm describing it. i'm not unilaterally imposing anything on her
So, that is both a great explanation for why Molly left, and at the same time a completely clear explanation for why e.g. Amanda and Anand don't leave. Holy shit that's a lot of work!
I've been contemplating the same thing, and as a result of my dithering over this, haven't actually set up my blog. This question has had me blocked for nearly a year—I really don't want to do substack, but the alternative is.. a LOT of work.
it should be easier, no argument about that
@abhayakara @benroyce @TheStoneDonkey
For some people it’s not necessarily about a specific action or being right or wrong. The issue is seeing horrific people on substack (ss) and being horrified by it. If ss has disgusting people on it, then the site itself disgusts some people.
I’m not saying using ss is wrong, it’s just that everything to do with it disgusts me, so I will miss the opportunity to hear their words. I’m OK with that.
@abhayakara @TheStoneDonkey
Boycotting a company is called "voting with your wallet".
Because it's the option that comes closest to what you should do as a citizen - not renounce your citizenship, but vote.
If we are voting against assholes with our wallet, then we have to stop driving (which I've pretty much done, but that was hard, and not everyone can do it).
The thing about voting with your wallet is that unless you are a billionaire, you don't have equal levarage, because the billionaires can just outbid you.
So TBH I do not take voting with my wallet very seriously as a way of changing the world. I do it when I can, but it's not a hill to die on.
I keep hearing people say this. Possibly it's true. But why do I keep hearing these assertions without backup? Like, you could have said "look here at what they are doing." But you didn't. Why didn't you?
If they are indeed promoting nazis, how are they doing that? Do you mean because they have a best seller chart and Tate is on top? Or something else? If it's something else, please point me to a clear analysis of this—I haven't been able to find one.
It is both reductionist and a category error.
Comcast functions at a utility level, giving bad people access to things, but does not give the masses access to them. If Comcast were to shut off access, bad people could make do with a free library connection.
Substack is promoting Andrew Tate, suggesting that people who already read email newsletters should also read his. This platforming extends his reach, and serves as an endorsement, lending credibility to him.
If substack is inviting him up onto stage to speak to the assembled crowd, then Comcast is the bouncer who lets him in to the crowd. Most ideally, he wouldn’t be a bad man. Beyond that, sure, he should be kept away from other people even in a crowd. But inviting him up onto stage to speak is a different category, and that’s where many many people draw the line and react.
I have responses to the rest of your questions, but I think at root it is the one question, so I will stop there.
I'm asking specifically what they are doing to platform assholes. Every so often I go look to try to figure out if they are actually doing anything other than not censoring them, and I have yet to succeed in finding out what they are doing other than that.
This is literally all I am asking. If they are supporting them, that's bad, and a reason to not use their service. If they are just not censoring them, I don't love that, but I don't take it the same way.
I realize you are "just asking questions" but if Comcast was paying Tate to spread his poison with the money I sent them for their services, then yes, I would support dropping Comcast.
But it is well past reductio ad absurdum to claim that I should boycott anything that Tate favours.
Substack is using the fees paid to them to literally pay Nazis for Nazi content.
Okay, that is literally my question. I do not see evidence of this. I'm not saying it's not happening. But you seem to know that it is happening. That means you've seen evidence. Please share a link.
I follow several people on substack and pay for their newsletters. As far as I know I'm paying for _them_. If that's not the case I'd like to know.
I don't think there's any evidence that Substack is paying kickbacks to Tate and his ilk, not that I've seen anyway, but they are definitely enabling him for profit, likely more than they are profiting from the writers you are reading.
I do boycott Amazon and Nestle and Florida orange juice (still), because I do not want my money to go toward supporting them no matter the quality of their products.
Of course everyone draws that line in a different place.
I get that, and I avoid certain companies too. The reason I'm digging in on this is that a lot of the criticisms of substack feel really lazy and misleading. There are very good reasons to criticize substack. But shaming people for not having weeks of technical expertise to throw at an alternative feels really unhelpful and counterproductive.
If this is a real problem for our community, we should actually solve it, and not shame non-experts for failing to solve it.
@abhayakara @dangillmor If Comcast promoted their service by paying Andrew Tate to list him as a "prominent user" I think it would make sense to try to move off of them, yes.
Comcast is a poor analogy though, as its often the single provider for a core service in an area. This is more like if CBS news hired Tate as a show host. Would you still watch CBS, or opt to find your news elsewhere?
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