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I really hope this injection of funding does not come with requirements or pressures to censor content on Substack. Thus far, they've been doing a great job bei

I really hope this injection of funding does not come with requirements or pressures to censor content on Substack. Thus far, they've been doing a great job being hands off with their moderation for the most part (https://blog.substack.com/p/how-we-approach-moderation-decisions https://blog.substack.com/p/how-we-approach-moderation-decis...). However, anti-free-speech/pro-censorship activists have been stepping up their usual tactics to pressure Substack into deplatforming authors. Many news outlets have also been running stories attacking Substack for hosting reasonable, legal discourse that runs against their ideological biases. I am very glad to subscribe and pay for authors I follow on Substack. If Substack ever implements a censorship regime that goes much beyond blocking spam or removing illegal content, I will move on. I simply see no differentiation for such a product if it ends up being another Twitter/Facebook/Medium/whatever with the same old content that repeats progressive worldviews and disallows everything else.

rvz 6y ago
> I really hope this injection of funding does not come with requirements or pressures to censor content on Substack. It will. VCs will be at it again and will join in the pressurising with the pro-censorship activists so that they will not want to be tied in supporting the so-called questionable content on Substack even though they may disagree with it. > If Substack ever implements a censorship regime that goes much beyond blocking spam or removing illegal content, I will move on. This is going to be inevitable due to the guilt by association of some authors who bend (not break) the ToS and that worries the VCs. So its either do little to no moderation and the VCs run away and taking their money with them or moderate, deplatform and ban authors who break the ToS. The latter keeps them happy, unfortunately. > I simply see no differentiation for such a product if it ends up being another Twitter/Facebook/Medium/whatever with the same old content that repeats progressive worldviews and disallows everything else. No difference to those who take VC capital just having another boss sitting on the board telling them to censor/ban/remove the content that they don't like, criticises them or makes them guilty by association over a scandal they refuse to comment on. When I see VCs like a16z hyping companies like Substack, in the long term the direction is always the same.

rvz 6y ago

> I really hope this injection of funding does not come with requirements or pressures to censor content on Substack. It will. VCs will be at it again and will join in the pressurising with the pro-censorship activists so that they will not want to be tied in supporting the so-called questionable content on Substack even though they may disagree with it. > If Substack ever implements a censorship regime that goes much beyond blocking spam or removing illegal content, I will move on. This is going to be inevitable due to the guilt by association of some authors who bend (not break) the ToS and that worries the VCs. So its either do little to no moderation and the VCs run away and taking their money with them or moderate, deplatform and ban authors who break the ToS. The latter keeps them happy, unfortunately. > I simply see no differentiation for such a product if it ends up being another Twitter/Facebook/Medium/whatever with the same old content that repeats progressive worldviews and disallows everything else. No difference to those who take VC capital just having another boss sitting on the board telling them to censor/ban/remove the content that they don't like, criticises them or makes them guilty by association over a scandal they refuse to comment on. When I see VCs like a16z hyping companies like Substack, in the long term the direction is always the same.