“We don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away.”

More than 200 Substack authors asked the platform to explain why it’s “platforming and monetizing Nazis,” and now they have an answer straight from co-founder Hamish McKenzie:

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.

While McKenzie offers no evidence to back these ideas, this tracks with the company’s previous stance on taking a hands-off approach to moderation. In April, Substack CEO Chris Best appeared on the Decoder podcast and refused to answer moderation questions. “We’re not going to get into specific ‘would you or won’t you’ content moderation questions” over the issue of overt racism being published on the platform, Best said. McKenzie followed up later with a similar statement to the one today, saying “we don’t like or condone bigotry in any form.”

      • reversebananimals@lemmy.worldEnglish
        231·
        11 months ago

        “but hey” is a colloquial conjunction phrase in American English. It’s usually used to indicate that the previous clause had a valid concern or made a good point, but the speaker is choosing to make light of it in order to disregard it despite knowing better, because they shortsightedly want the outcome described in the clause that follows.

        Another example: “My doctor told me to watch my weight, but hey, it’s Christmas and those cookies look fantastic.”

        • kashara@lemmy.zipEnglish
          121·
          11 months ago

          British don’t say “but hey”. Australians don’t. New Zelanders don’t. South African don’t. They could but they don’t. Therefore, “but hey” is fucking, broken american english which they instead call colloquial.

          But hey! It’s ok to speak fuckingly broken english.