Substack says it won't ban extremist speech, censorship not a solution

Under pressure from critics who say Substack is profiting from newsletters that promote hate speech and racism, the company’s founders said that they would not ban Nazi symbols and extremist rhetoric from the platform.
 

“I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either — we wish no one held those views,” Hamish McKenzie, a co-founder of Substack, said. “But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetising publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse.”

The response came weeks after The Atlantic found that at least 16 Substack newsletters had “overt Nazi symbols” in their logos or graphics, and that white supremacists had been allowed to publish on, and profit from, the platform. Hundreds of newsletter writers signed a letter opposing Substack’s position and threatening to leave. About 100 others signed a letter supporting the company’s stance.
 

In the statement, McKenzie said that he and the company’s other founders, Chris Best and Jairaj Sethi, concluded that censoring the publications would not make the problem of hateful rhetoric go away.

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