Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.
For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community
Katie Notopoulos writes about the economic incentives for substack to keep Nazis:
Also links to a post signed by a bunch of prominent substackers who are just fine with the policy as it stands. Contains the usual suspects of Bari Weiss, Edward Snowden, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger: https://substack.com/home/post/p-139757629
Good to have on hand if you find any of them linked so they can be avoided
We are committed to upholding and protecting freedom of expression, even when it hurts. As @Ted Gioia has noted, history shows that censorship is most potently used by the powerful to silence the powerless
oh no, where these wittle powerless nazis will go? they are only backed by the likes of Thiel and Malofeev
Organizations who try to silence and censor writers are the ones who have a real Nazi problem.
you see, the real nazis were antifa all along
As Elle said in her letter: “We are still trying to figure out the best way to handle extremism on the internet. But of all the ways we’ve tried so far, Substack is working the best.”
We have investigated ourselves and found no problems. Any further criticism will be dismissed
We are still trying to figure out the best way to handle extremism on the internet. But of all the ways we’ve tried so far, Substack is working the best.
All of this is contemptible but for some reason this quote he pulls is the worst bit to me. It's so pompous and so arrogant for a tech bro to describe his Nazi funding company as "a way of handling extremism on the internet." Not even something his company does. Just his company, existing
of all the ways we’ve tried so far, Substack is working the best.
The sheer arrogance of this quote is really something to behold. It's "working the best" by what metric, exactly, sir? And who's the "we" that have tried various ways so far, because it's certainly not 'people on the internet,' many of whom have developed ways of dealing with Nazis which are significantly more effective than the substack method of 'literally give them money to use our platform'
Hell, even 4chan deals better with the neonazis than Substack, as 4chan doesn't fucking pay them.
What fucking data do they show that deplatforming and demonetizing makes extremist views worse?
we don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse
Last I remember, actively demonetizing fringe views like Alex Jones damn near killed their reach. And quarantining on Reddit completely nuked organic reach which was, for a long time, how crazy shit was reaching people.
history shows that censorship is most potently used by the powerful to silence the powerless
In what fucking world do the powerful care about the powerless nazis. What fucking world. Didn’t we fucking fight a world war about this. It’s really fucking cliche to say but holy fuck why the fuck would the powerful ever care about censoring the powerless nazis.
I think it’s important to engage with and understand a range of views even if—especially if—you disagree with them
Shit dude the owner of Substack is not engaging with my view that he’s a fucking witless dishcloth. Kinda hypocritical amirite
The idea that removing someone’s platform makes things worse is just insane.
It’s not silencing them, it’s just removing their reach to spread their horseshit.
It’s not even removing someone’s platform when they’re using your platform to spread their message. Cutting off their internet? That’s deplatforming. Throttling their bandwidth? That’s fucking with their access to utilities (internet should be a utility). Kicking them off your privately-owned site they don’t have a majority ownership stake in? If that’s deplatforming you’re admitting your platform is all about the Nazis.
I do not understand these mental gymnastics tech bros go through.
I'm fully in favor of kicking nazis off of wherever specifically because doing so is censorship, deplatforming, etc, so gotta disagree with you there
It sounds like we only disagree on the specific word we use to describe the act of removing someone from a website so that’s an okay disagreement!
Basically: “If we don’t platform the nazis, where will all the hard earned nazi money go?”