Influential technology news blog Platformer is leaving Substack, but founder Casey Newton says the move is an attempt to intentionally moderate pro-Nazi speech. He said this was due to the company's resistance.
Newton, who launched Platformer on Substack in 2020, said the technology news outlet is moving to Ghost, an open source publisher similar to the for-profit Substack, and said the transition is expected to be complete by Tuesday.
In a lengthy statement included in Platformer's Thursday newsletter, Newton said publishing on Substack has helped Platformer grow from 24,000 free subscribers to more than 170,000 since launching in 2020. It was advertised.
But, he said, “If Substack can grow publications like ours this quickly, it can help other types of publications grow as well.”
“Until Substack makes clear that it will take proactive steps to eliminate hate speech and extremism, the scale of the current problem will not matter. That infrastructure gives these publications the potential to grow rapidly. That's what's important,” Newton said.
The announcement came a day after the company banned five pro-Nazi accounts. This follows a growing uproar among posters in the wake of a November article in The Atlantic that revealed Substack's hosting and profits from numerous pro-Nazi and other openly pro-white accounts. This was an attempt to alleviate the situation. supremacist ideology.
A group of contributors calling themselves Nazi Substackers published an open letter in December calling on the company to do more about the issue and to explain why it hasn't done more.
Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie responded with a letter on Dec. 21 explaining why the company is reluctant to pursue such content.
“We don't like Nazis either. We hope no one has such thoughts. But some people do have such extreme views,” McKenzie wrote. “Given that, we do not believe that censorship (including by demonetizing publications) will solve the problem. In fact, censorship is making it worse.”
