Accounting for Nazis wasn't on my New Year's list, but here we are.
A Substackers Against Nazis update, what's next for this publication, and transparency on finding my way in the grey area of real life.
Coolcoolcool, so the update in a nutshell is: Substack leadership is totally ok with Nazis.
In this super-nice-guy and self-contradictory statement from Hamish McKenzie last week, Substack responded to the letter from Substackers Against Nazis by essentially stating: “Yes, there are Nazis here. No, we won’t be moderating them. And based on our own logic, you should really be ok with that.”
In Hamish’s own words:
I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.
Hamish McKenzie’s statement reads like a response from just another mediocre white tech bro, already a little buzzed on fancy beers in the midst of another just-because philosophical debate that doesn’t ever take the reality of anyone else’s lived experience into context.
“Dude, I hear you? But it’s not really that serious. Actually if you think about it…”
Because he is never going to be the guy who is actually affected by Nazi violence. Nazis aren’t a threat to him, so he’s cool with a “live and let live” approach.
His statement says he gives not one fuck about those of his users who live in bodies that are under very real threat from the flourishing of neo-Nazi, white supremacist and christian nationalist agendas—agendas that he has given the green light with all the associated importance and necessary consideration of a fashion merchandiser saying “I wouldn’t personally wear a bell-bottom trouser with hips like mine, but people are loving them, so bring ‘em on in.”
In addition, his assertion that restricting hate speech somehow makes it worse makes no sense. I would love to see his data where “history shows” because the note he links to is just another vague-but-strongly-worded opinion about free speech and why we should all accept the incorrect math required to allow Nazis to also speak freely about who they hate and would like to see dead.
Also Hamish, or any other civilian individual for that matter, doesn’t have control over free speech and whether or not it exists. That’s a right granted (or not) by the government. What a private business does or does not allow on their platform is akin to “no shirt, no shoes, no service.” You still have the freedom to go shirtless and shoeless outside the establishment, but the business has the right not to allow you inside if you do.
Like, PLEASE let the Nazis scatter and try to find somewhere else to publish their hate on the internet?? PLEASE make it more difficult for them to monetize their efforts?? Please let them have to take their shirtless, shoeless selves to a different diner???
Meanwhile, sex workers are still barred from publishing on Substack and pornography is prohibited in a cute, selectively-free-speech plot twist I’m calling: Yes Nazis, no porn.
So they MUST understand this concept on some level despite leading us to believe that they maybe don’t. Substack DOES moderate content, but only as far as it affects their brand and their ability to make money. Because Stripe, the default payment processor has restrictions on what it can be used for (ie, not porn,) and because they don’t want to become OnlyFans 2.0, sex workers and porn ARE moderated.
Which then means either that Substack leadership doesn’t understand what “free speech” actually is, OR they TOTALLY do, and are simply using it as a cover for maintaining a certain image and money-making, OR they are actually really about the neo-Nazi-white-nationalist lyfe (please let this not be true.)
In trying to avoid falling into the trap of turning Hamish into an impersonal caricature made up of a collection of unlikable attributes, (as so often happens in moments like this,) I try to think of Hamish as a person instead of an impersonal statue who hidden behind the larger facade of his company.
But all I come back to is specifically how deeply disappointing a person he is as one who exists in 2023 with ears and eyes and a brain between them.
Dear Ms. Hamish’s-Mom. Dear Hamish’s Friends and Family. Dear Hamish’s Coworkers, Neighbors and Associates: Is this what you hoped for in your boy? A guy who completely ignores the violence of the past so that it can continue to repeat itself, has no context or empathy for any experiences outside his own, and is apparently also unable to differentiate between governmentally-granted rights and the actions of a private company?
Were you hoping for a guy who would accumulate the power to actually do something about the organization, mobilization and funding of a historically violent hate group, and then do worse than nothing by actively platforming its members?
Were you hoping for a guy who’s more ok with Nazis than he is with sex workers and porn?
Side question: Where is Jairaj Sethi in all of this? There is a lone brown guy on their leadership team, and he seems largely not to participate in social media in any way. That’s 100% a valid choice, especially understandable for someone in the public eye.
But as a co-founder of a platform that’s currently under enough scrutiny for being so ok with Nazis that it’s being written up in the fucking New York Times, Business Insider, TechCrunch and more, I would think he would also want to personally give his two cents along with his co-founder-bros-in-arms. However, aside from his name being used by Hamish and Chris to cosign their completely idiotic statements, I haven’t seen his actual voice or thoughts anywhere in this.
I understand that I am making a lot of assumptions when I ask myself this question, but:
How and why is he, as a fellow person of south-asian decent and someone I assume could also understand the fear of being directly affected by these hate groups, completely and utterly invisible in this conversation?
I want it to be because he disagrees. I want it to be because he’s trying to get them to change their minds about the Substack terms of use and their approach to moderating hate speech on the platform.
I worry that it’s actually because he’s benefitting from his own proximity to their whiteness, and so he counts himself out of the conversation.
For now, I’m researching other platforms to host my content on. And also having complicated thoughts and feelings about this. Here’s how they go:
If I leave, does that mean the Nazis have won because now they get to take over this platform too until Substack essentially becomes “Twitter for Nazi essayists”?
If I stay, in an attempt to hold my ground and in some small way keep trying to be a voice for good here, does that mean Nazis STILL win? Substack Pro advances, which are given out at Substack’s discretion and active curation, are funded by a percentage of all Substack writer’s earnings. And because they’ve ACTIVELY platformed known racists and bigots with Substack Pro advances in the past, that means I make it just a fraction of a percent easier for them to do so again. I stay and become complicit.
Does my tiny publication even make a fucking difference? Have I already lost by being small and insignificant in a fight against much larger, better funded monsters? Am I just the youngest cousin who wants to play with the big kids, but inevitably ends up in the corner alone with my playdo because I’m not tall enough to reach the liquor cabinet?
And if I decide to leave a platform which admittedly does have excellent features for independent writers in terms of discoverability and growth, do I shoot myself in the foot by leaving? Have I then done white nationalists a favor by stunting my own ability as a woman of color to grow a successful publication?
I don’t know all the answers.
, who spearheaded the SAN campaign, and the other organizers are discussing a potential organized response and mass exodus, which I would happily participate in. who writes Sharon’s Anti-Racism Newsletter, recently posted in one of her last Substack Notes:“Given what I write about I already take a lot of hassle by email and on social media (including having actual white supremacists sign up for my newsletter to hassle me and including being targeted by haters on Notes). So I'm done, because this isn't academic for me. (And yes, I know this issue might surface again elsewhere.)”
She has already left the platform for beehiiv.
Another writer, Kelli Anna, recently wrote on her Substack: “I am tired of having to leave one social media platform after another because of the greedy tech bros who own them all.”
I feel these comments in my gut. This isn’t academic. This is fucking tiring. And I do feel, in this moment at least, that I’ll be moving to another platform once I’ve finished my research and selected one that fits best. There doesn’t seem to be a way for me to stay on Substack for the foreseeable future without being complicit in financially supporting Nazis (did not think I would ever write out a sentence like that…)
Finally, why am I writing this? Why am I sharing any of my thoughts at all when others have much more eloquently and effectively expanded on this subject?
(Read this excellent analysis from
)) , the author of the article in The Atlantic that started the most recent ball rolling on this issue.)Because I wanted to share in real-time about something that hits at the heart of my work: finding meaningful success in the grey area of real life.
The decision NOT to support Nazis is totally uncomplicated.
The actions that support the above statement feel more complicated when your own success is on the line. There’s that grey area for you. The fog feels heavy when you think your own decisions could create your biggest roadblocks if you make the wrong move.
Marisa Kabas wrote earlier today in a post titled We got Substack to admit its Nazi problem:
When we become so convinced that there is only one true platform, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: We excuse the flaws and forgive bad behavior from the people in charge. And we just accept that this is as good as it’s going to get. We can tell ourselves that “Sure, the founders have rolled out the welcome mat for Nazis, transphobes and other extremists, but things are good for me here.”
I get the sense from some that they’re angry for being forced to contend with this inconvenient and maddening reality. After all, searching for a tech utopia in a world run by techno-fascists operating under the guise of free speech probably sounds like a fool’s errand. But when we express the belief that better things are not possible, that is when we’ve truly admitted defeat.
There are other platforms that exist for writers to use. There are many pathways to success, even when we can’t see them right away. But the danger of getting stuck comes when we decide we don’t have the power to own our choices. Or that, because we’re doing ok here (even if others aren’t,) we don’t have to make a choice—we can just not think about it.
Frankie De La Cretaz, who also participated in the Substackers Against Nazis campaign, writes about the surge in anti-trans content on Substack a few years ago. It prompted them to leave the platform at the time after Substack’s refusal to moderate that hatred either. There was no large movement about the issue then because, as De La Cretaz points out: “The problem, of course, is that most people don’t feel motivated to care enough until it begins to affect people beyond the trans community.”
De La Cretaz later made the informed decision to come back to the platform after finding that making their newsletter something financially viable just wasn’t working elsewhere. It’s a decision I respect and understand. But the problem remains that, contrary to Hamish’s flawed understanding, the “Nazi problem” has continued to grow completely unchecked and encouraged to flourish through that lack of moderation. From the same article:
Radical bigots have migrated here because they saw that Substack allowed others with harmful beliefs to thrive openly; the lack of response to anti-trans writers would naturally mean a lack of response to other kinds of hateful beliefs…
Ultimately my choices come to this: I can decide to stay here, or I can decide to go.
But if I stay only because I think I have no chance of success anywhere else without even trying, or if I go only because it’s easier for me to just do it and wash my hands of this, I will rob myself of the possibility that the grey area of reality provides: the possibility that something better exists—not just in the form of tech features and community-building, but actually better—and I could play whatever small part I can to help to make it real.
The grey-area can feel scary because it means we can’t see everything laid out in front of us. We can’t enact our perfect-on-paper plans to the letter without confronting difficult choices or unforeseen obstacles that looms suddenly from the flowing grey-area mists. It can also be a space of tension because sometimes we have to wait there until we have everything we need to take the next step. It’s uncomfortable not to have my all the way “right” answer immediately in front of me.
The grey area is also beautiful, though. It holds the power of knowing we have choices in the first place, and that we can make them with intention no matter how insignificant they may seem. If I make a choice that somehow messes me up, I’m allowed to make another intentional choice that takes me down a different path.
As I said earlier, I am researching other platforms to move my content to because that seems to be the best choice for me from what I can see right now. But whatever my choice ends up being, I want it to be informed by the facts, my beliefs about those facts and my hope that things can be better. This is ultimately about real-life outcomes for real people.
That’s it for now. I’ll keep you updated.
Thank you for being here💛
Zoha
About The Author:
Zoha Abbas is a writer, Intuitive Tarot Reader and Business Coach who aims to explore the small business conversations around self-trust, critical thinking, reality checks and forging your (not so straight) path to success in the grey-area of real life. She is the CEO and Creator of The Ownership Method, a coaching practice where she helps fellow entrepreneurs and small business owners do business better through data, divination and dismantling harmful systems.
For inquiries, please email: zoha@theownershipmethod.com