Substackers Against Nazis

Dear readers,

Today, I’m posting this letter drafted by Marisa Kabas and a group of other Substack publishers in response to the presence of literal Nazis on Substack, which is the platform I use to deliver my newsletter to you. I believe in free speech. I believe people have the right to their opinions, no matter how stupid, vicious, puerile, or evil. But I do not believe in paying those people for their opinions. And I don’t want to support a business that does.

I’ve been too busy with personal matters and a novel to devote any time to this controversy until now. That was my mistake.

There’s an old joke about a bar where a single guy shows up with a swastika tattoo and the bartender immediately throws him out on his ass. One of the other patrons asks him why; that guy wasn’t doing anything, he seemed harmless enough, and so on. And the bartender responds: you let one in, and pretty soon, he brings a friend. Then his friend brings a friend. They get comfortable. They tell people this is a place they can hang out. And before you know it, you’ve got a Nazi bar.

The owners of Substack have been able to avoid any hard questions about this for too long. It’s time they answered.

They need to decide if Substack is a Nazi bar.

Thanks for reading,

Christopher Farnsworth

Dear Chris, Hamish & Jairaj:

We’re asking a very simple question that has somehow been made complicated: Why are you platforming and monetizing Nazis? 

According to a piece written by Substack publisher Jonathan M. Katz and published by The Atlantic on November 28, this platform has a Nazi problem: 

As Patrick Casey, a leader of a now-defunct neo-Nazi group who is banned on nearly every other social platform except Substack, wrote on here in 2021: “I’m able to live comfortably doing something I find enjoyable and fulfilling. The cause isn’t going anywhere.” Several Nazis and white supremacists including Richard Spencer not only have paid subscriptions turned on but have received Substack “Bestseller” badges, indicating that they are making at a minimum thousands of dollars a year.

From our perspective as Substack publishers, it is unfathomable that someone with a swastika avatar, who writes about “The Jewish question,” or who promotes Great Replacement Theory, could be given the tools to succeed on your platform. And yet you’ve been unable to adequately explain your position. 

In the past you have defended your decision to platform bigotry by saying you “make decisions based on principles not PR” and “will stick to our hands-off approach to content moderation.” But there’s a difference between a hands-off approach and putting your thumb on the scale. We know you moderate some content, including spam sites and newsletters written by sex workers. Why do you choose to promote and allow the monetization of sites that traffic in white nationalism? 

Your unwillingness to play by your own rules on this issue has already led to the announced departures of several prominent Substackers, including Rusty Foster and Helena Fitzgerald. They follow previous exoduses of writers, including Substack Pro recipient Grace Lavery and Jude Ellison S. Doyle, who left with similar concerns. 

As journalist Casey Newton told his more than 166,000 Substack subscribers after Katz’s piece came out: “The correct number of newsletters using Nazi symbols that you host and profit from on your platform is zero.” 

We, your publishers, want to hear from you on the official Substack newsletter. Is platforming Nazis part of your vision of success? Let us know—from there we can each decide if this is still where we want to be.

Signed, 

Substackers Against Nazis

Thanks for reading. If this letter resonates, please share this post with others. If you’re a publisher who would like to join this collective effort, we encourage you to repost the letter on your own Substack.