I'm turning off comments because it's getting very silly in here. My guess is that one of the weirdos who sees going all-in on Substack as a great opportunity to farm subscribers has posted about this, and their fash-adjacent acolytes are piling in to write enthusiastically stupid comments.
Thank you for posting this. I've seen this too, and I'm not even a writer. I've been recommended antivaxx garbage a couple of times (probably because I follow a couple of people who track COVID and RSV, etc), and the Nazis and Diet Nazis came to find me as soon as I started participating in the discussion about them. Clarence is especially prolific; he may not need the money, but he sure is working hard to make sure everyone knows what he believes. And a lot of the people who pushed back on me but were very very sure they were not Nazis were definitely transmisist. You know, like the Nazis were.
I will say that a lot of trans writers already went through this long before Katz's article came out when several prominent "gender critical" types were invited to Substack. Some of them left; a few came back. Substack has a big big problem and it's only going to get worse.
Thank you so much for summarising this, Josh - I'm so grateful. I know it's just well-intended ignorance, but seeing people whose writing I really value loudly declare that substack just doesn't have a nazi problem is really jarring and destabilising, and I've been feeling really let down. So pleased you're moving to ghost, and I'm so happy to take some of the money I had spent on writers who are defiantly remaining here and take it to a paid subscription to you, instead.
Thanks Josh, disturbing as hell. I am over on Ghost and it's fine, whatever - maybe quieter comments but it doesn't stink like Substack does. Hey, do you know if anyone has also done a similar mine of anti-muslim anti-arab newsletters? Cos I feel like that content will be just as prevalent, and maybe even more blatant? I like the way you've started to expose the very real and active role that Substack play in promotion; they like to say that people can maintain and build their own audience organically and that audiences decide, but it's a lottery - and one in which they actively manipulate the odds. I wish they would just be honest and stop acting like they have no control over any of this stuff. That's what drives me so wild. I also think the days of monetised newsletters are going to end pretty soon too. Just a feeling.
Thank you for wading through this appalling shite so that we don’t have too - and so that we have some facts to refer to when discussing this. I’m sure your soul/mind/spirit/humanity must feel like it needs a deep clean. I love your writing and thought provoking insights and will follow you (you’ll take me automatically). Although appalling (again) things are happening and being written about, the least I can do is be informed, bear witness, and take what action I can. When future generations ask how could these things happen, I need to be able to say that I did what I could.
Thanks for doing this Josh and I understand you leaving.
None of what you've shown me is surprising unfortunately. I've been aware that I was sharing a platform with an anti-vaccine cesspit for some years. I get recommended anti-vaccine/ Covid denial rubbish on more days that I don't get recommended that content. So far, I've stayed here for the same reason I still use Facebook, because I still believe that I'm doing some good in what I'm doing (and because there are some fantastic people I've met here).
How long that will last remains to be seen. The last couple of months have certainly seen me re-evaluating my future on this platform.
This makes me sick. I had no idea how much garbage Substack was profiting from. I was pissed off when the platform recently recommended Richard Hanania to me. Now that I see the degree to which the company is contributing to the decline of our culture, I can't justify continuing to be here.
Thanks! (I think?) I certainly wouldn't want to do a deep dig to find all this out for myself ... I guess we will one day learn if this stuff mostly snuck in under the radar, OR if people managing the site knew what was happening - it seems at the very least that once it was publicised they didn't seem surprised so much by the content they were hosting as they were by the reaction of writers and readers!?
re: "Substack’s business is built on — and, I argue, depends on — enabling horrific amounts of racism, disinformation, and hate speech." This is hard to deny even after the little bit of digging you've done here. Bloody hell. Hamish McKenzie you absolute dweeb. Nazi scum fuck off
This is horribly eye opening. I had thought (from reading Bernard's article this morning) that the issue had been blown way out of proportion, but you've convinced me otherwise. Well done on your work, and your decision.
Thank you for taking the time to express all this Josh. I have enjoyed, paid for, and likely will continue to enjoy your writing (in my in-box; assuming Ghost is not a massive chore to receive emails from). I do think it's a shame that you're leaving, ironically because of the loss of community recommendations... Based on your experience, you might disagree, but I haven't ever gone out of my way to search for shit here, so all I know of this place is hundreds of insightful and wholesome recommendations and the discovery of many new writers.
Would I have ever found writers like yourself, Emily, Ben@Memia, David Slack, Nick, and many more if not for this platform and the community recommendations? I expect not.
Would I be able to find garbage about Jews and vaccines if I spent an hour deliberately searching for it absolutely anywhere on the internet (including open-source Ghost)? I expect so.
However, I accept there's no simple answer, because if you frame it purely through the eyes of a marketer, people will consistently disappoint us by marching right over the cliff edge in search of a good deal, a shiny new thing, or someone else to blame for their ills.
That is a reality we need to contend with. But we, in my opinion, should not pay the price for that in individual sacrifice, and rather in communal vigilance. You might have found a bunch of bad Substacks, but I can say, without any doubt, there are far more innocent or objectively good ones.
Those who elect to fight us with fear and disinformation are very aware that the majority of us believe in shared good, so their only play is to divide us. Because the one thing they understand is, when there are no longer enough strong voices in the places where people go, the only 'truth' left is theirs.
The horrors are breathtaking. Phew. We’re sunk. My Ivy League educated (undergrad Yale, grad Harvard) brother Patrick when I first joined Substack, I asked him what subscriptions he liked on Substack. He recommended a “News of the Day” Persuasion Substack. So I tried it and immediately some pastey white boy in London was writing a take down of Charles Below, NYTs, OpEd where Charles rightly identified anti-Black racism as the root cause of whatever the issue they were discussing. And this white London boy was attacking Charles- discrediting him, undermining him, dismissing him, calling for him to be fired. It’s what MLK talked about, not fearing the Klanners as much as white moderates.
Lauren Hough in her attack on SAN she posted a “There are no Nazis on Substack” link to some dweeby white boy in Paris who gives walking tours of Paris. Because admiring the spoils of colonialism and racist oppression via fancy Rues in Paris is head in the sand legit. My first husband is German and he always said the English and French were just as antisemitic as the Germans- they just weren’t as overt.
I'm turning off comments because it's getting very silly in here. My guess is that one of the weirdos who sees going all-in on Substack as a great opportunity to farm subscribers has posted about this, and their fash-adjacent acolytes are piling in to write enthusiastically stupid comments.
Fucking hell.
Thank you for posting this. I've seen this too, and I'm not even a writer. I've been recommended antivaxx garbage a couple of times (probably because I follow a couple of people who track COVID and RSV, etc), and the Nazis and Diet Nazis came to find me as soon as I started participating in the discussion about them. Clarence is especially prolific; he may not need the money, but he sure is working hard to make sure everyone knows what he believes. And a lot of the people who pushed back on me but were very very sure they were not Nazis were definitely transmisist. You know, like the Nazis were.
I will say that a lot of trans writers already went through this long before Katz's article came out when several prominent "gender critical" types were invited to Substack. Some of them left; a few came back. Substack has a big big problem and it's only going to get worse.
Thank you so much for summarising this, Josh - I'm so grateful. I know it's just well-intended ignorance, but seeing people whose writing I really value loudly declare that substack just doesn't have a nazi problem is really jarring and destabilising, and I've been feeling really let down. So pleased you're moving to ghost, and I'm so happy to take some of the money I had spent on writers who are defiantly remaining here and take it to a paid subscription to you, instead.
Jesus. This is devastating.
Thanks Josh, disturbing as hell. I am over on Ghost and it's fine, whatever - maybe quieter comments but it doesn't stink like Substack does. Hey, do you know if anyone has also done a similar mine of anti-muslim anti-arab newsletters? Cos I feel like that content will be just as prevalent, and maybe even more blatant? I like the way you've started to expose the very real and active role that Substack play in promotion; they like to say that people can maintain and build their own audience organically and that audiences decide, but it's a lottery - and one in which they actively manipulate the odds. I wish they would just be honest and stop acting like they have no control over any of this stuff. That's what drives me so wild. I also think the days of monetised newsletters are going to end pretty soon too. Just a feeling.
Truly sickening content. What a terrible waste of a good platform.
Thank you for wading through this appalling shite so that we don’t have too - and so that we have some facts to refer to when discussing this. I’m sure your soul/mind/spirit/humanity must feel like it needs a deep clean. I love your writing and thought provoking insights and will follow you (you’ll take me automatically). Although appalling (again) things are happening and being written about, the least I can do is be informed, bear witness, and take what action I can. When future generations ask how could these things happen, I need to be able to say that I did what I could.
Thanks for doing this Josh and I understand you leaving.
None of what you've shown me is surprising unfortunately. I've been aware that I was sharing a platform with an anti-vaccine cesspit for some years. I get recommended anti-vaccine/ Covid denial rubbish on more days that I don't get recommended that content. So far, I've stayed here for the same reason I still use Facebook, because I still believe that I'm doing some good in what I'm doing (and because there are some fantastic people I've met here).
How long that will last remains to be seen. The last couple of months have certainly seen me re-evaluating my future on this platform.
This makes me sick. I had no idea how much garbage Substack was profiting from. I was pissed off when the platform recently recommended Richard Hanania to me. Now that I see the degree to which the company is contributing to the decline of our culture, I can't justify continuing to be here.
Thanks! (I think?) I certainly wouldn't want to do a deep dig to find all this out for myself ... I guess we will one day learn if this stuff mostly snuck in under the radar, OR if people managing the site knew what was happening - it seems at the very least that once it was publicised they didn't seem surprised so much by the content they were hosting as they were by the reaction of writers and readers!?
See you over on Ghost, Josh!
re: "Substack’s business is built on — and, I argue, depends on — enabling horrific amounts of racism, disinformation, and hate speech." This is hard to deny even after the little bit of digging you've done here. Bloody hell. Hamish McKenzie you absolute dweeb. Nazi scum fuck off
This is horribly eye opening. I had thought (from reading Bernard's article this morning) that the issue had been blown way out of proportion, but you've convinced me otherwise. Well done on your work, and your decision.
Thank you, Josh.
It seems I'm going to have to re-evaluate my participation of Substsack. The moment you mentioned Glinner, it pretty well under-scored your point.
Thank you for taking the time to express all this Josh. I have enjoyed, paid for, and likely will continue to enjoy your writing (in my in-box; assuming Ghost is not a massive chore to receive emails from). I do think it's a shame that you're leaving, ironically because of the loss of community recommendations... Based on your experience, you might disagree, but I haven't ever gone out of my way to search for shit here, so all I know of this place is hundreds of insightful and wholesome recommendations and the discovery of many new writers.
Would I have ever found writers like yourself, Emily, Ben@Memia, David Slack, Nick, and many more if not for this platform and the community recommendations? I expect not.
Would I be able to find garbage about Jews and vaccines if I spent an hour deliberately searching for it absolutely anywhere on the internet (including open-source Ghost)? I expect so.
However, I accept there's no simple answer, because if you frame it purely through the eyes of a marketer, people will consistently disappoint us by marching right over the cliff edge in search of a good deal, a shiny new thing, or someone else to blame for their ills.
That is a reality we need to contend with. But we, in my opinion, should not pay the price for that in individual sacrifice, and rather in communal vigilance. You might have found a bunch of bad Substacks, but I can say, without any doubt, there are far more innocent or objectively good ones.
Those who elect to fight us with fear and disinformation are very aware that the majority of us believe in shared good, so their only play is to divide us. Because the one thing they understand is, when there are no longer enough strong voices in the places where people go, the only 'truth' left is theirs.
The horrors are breathtaking. Phew. We’re sunk. My Ivy League educated (undergrad Yale, grad Harvard) brother Patrick when I first joined Substack, I asked him what subscriptions he liked on Substack. He recommended a “News of the Day” Persuasion Substack. So I tried it and immediately some pastey white boy in London was writing a take down of Charles Below, NYTs, OpEd where Charles rightly identified anti-Black racism as the root cause of whatever the issue they were discussing. And this white London boy was attacking Charles- discrediting him, undermining him, dismissing him, calling for him to be fired. It’s what MLK talked about, not fearing the Klanners as much as white moderates.
Lauren Hough in her attack on SAN she posted a “There are no Nazis on Substack” link to some dweeby white boy in Paris who gives walking tours of Paris. Because admiring the spoils of colonialism and racist oppression via fancy Rues in Paris is head in the sand legit. My first husband is German and he always said the English and French were just as antisemitic as the Germans- they just weren’t as overt.