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> they say they are "anti-censorship" and won't evict writers from their "private platform" "Anti-censorship" is hugely unpopular with the mainstream intellect

> they say they are "anti-censorship" and won't evict writers from their "private platform" "Anti-censorship" is hugely unpopular with the mainstream intellectual community these days. It's close to being a dog whistle for the alt-right. I'm surprised this is a stance that would attract more "excellent writers".

lhnz 5y ago
It's not surprising if you think the non-mainstream intellectual community is large enough to contain excellent writers that were currently under-utilized and under-financed. Excellent writers could have been ignored by the mainstream market previously if they were outside of the norm and sometimes found in baskets with bad apples (e.g. "alt-right"). The non-mainstream is actually a collection of smaller minority groups -- it tends to be the mainstream that is more homogenous. It doesn't surprise me that Substack has found success by not treating the non-mainstream as equally worthy of scorn. It also won't surprise me when they start to attract more writers from the mainstream. The mainstream can sometimes appear to be totally homogenous in their hatred of liberal content policies but this is mostly due to the efforts of a small minority. If the offering is good, others will slowly come aboard. As another commentator noted (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31084791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31084791), Substack's policy is politically more in line with neoliberal complaints of censorship than the complaints from those in the alt-right. (Their comment is better than mine since it is a more direct response to the core of your comment, which could be read as suggesting that use of Substack points towards sympathy for the "alt-right".)
slg 5y ago
People are pushing many indepedent flavors of "anti-censorship" at the moment. Some of them clearly are dog whistle's for the alt-right by people who just want to say bigoted things without repercussions. The Substack version is more inline with the neoliberal complaints of censorship. This letter from Harper's Magazine[1] from a couple years back is a great example of this thinking. Whether the signees of this letter are "excellent writers" is certainly up for debate, but most of these clearly aren't alt-right thinkers. [1] - https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/ https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
nokcha 5y ago
> "Anti-censorship" is hugely unpopular with the mainstream intellectual community these days. I'd disagree. It's unpopular with left-leaning mainstream audiences, but among intellectuals who write for a living, I imagine that extra assurances of not getting kicked off the platform are rather attractive.
- slg 5y ago
  >It's unpopular with left-leaning mainstream audiences It is truly wild how HN often frames censorship as something coming purely from the left while ignoring the laws coming out of conservative state legislatures across the country. There is a wide spectrum of people both pushing for censorship and pushing against it.
  - edmundsauto 5y ago
    Not to mention the censorship pressure exerted by family values groups’ complaints to the FCC. Those are generally very conservative groups who want to protect children from seeing a breast.
  - farmerstan 5y ago
    What is insane is when people frame anti-censorship as an alt-right value. That offends people like me who are staunchly liberal but completely anti-censorship to my core.
    - evandale 5y ago
      It's so pervasive that you can't even have an anti-censorship opinions on Reddit without getting lumped in with the alt-right and banned from subreddits. The nuance of "I disagree with you but defend your right to say it" is dying a painful death. Defend free speech and get accused of being alt-right or wanting to say the n-word. Another thing dying is the defense of protests. I made a couple comments in popular Canadian subreddits about the truckers and was banned from a few for saying "protest isn't meant to make people feel happy and if the protestors don't make you feel uncomfortable you either agree with them or they're not doing their job". I got banned from one with the reason being "be gone nazi scum go try parler".
saint_fiasco 5y ago
It's unpopular among people who consume the writings of the intellectual community. It's less popular among intellectuals themselves, and even the pro-censorship intellectuals only want other people to be censored, not themselves.
bigmealbigmeal 5y ago
Do you have any sources that indicate anti-censorship is “hugely unpopular” with the mainstream intellectual community? For example, esteemed scientists speaking out against it? It may be important here to separate journalists and political activists from the intellectual community. Not to say that they aren’t intellectuals, but the issue could be limited to that set of intellectuals in particular.
- kyrra 5y ago
  See NYT "hit" pieces on substack: * https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/business/media/substack-newsletter-competition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/business/media/substack-n... * https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/business/media/substack-growth-newsletters.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/business/media/substack-g... Along with one of Substack's founders responding to it: https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1514318085083340807 https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1514318085083340807
  - bigmealbigmeal 5y ago
    Thanks for sharing these. From what I can see, the criticism here is coming entirely from journalists/activists. It makes me wonder: how many of the opinions that we are exposed to originate from journalists/activists? How much are we mixing up the opinions of these people as representing the opinions of scientists, engineers and philosophers? How much are we mixing up the opinions of journalists/activists as representing those of your average person? I'm starting to see a deep issue with the preeminence of journalist/activist opinion.
sixo 5y ago
It's well-aligned with "writers own their audience" - together this positions substack as a platform for monetizing writing, not as more of a publisher.
temp8964 5y ago
> "Anti-censorship" is hugely unpopular with the mainstream intellectual community these days. I don’t know where did you get this idea? What did you mean “mainstream intellectual community”? Do you have any evidence like mass signatures supporting censorship from mainstream intellectuals? People consume too much Reddit / Twitter sometimes live in an alternative reality.
russellbeattie 5y ago
Totally agree. "Anti-censorship" is definitely a dog whistle call out to the right wing: "Feel free to lie and spread dangerous misinformation on our platform." I don't know if Substack actually allows "Fauci is the devil, all liberals are socialist pedophiles" writers on their site, but that's what they're promising to support.

lhnz 5y ago

It's not surprising if you think the non-mainstream intellectual community is large enough to contain excellent writers that were currently under-utilized and under-financed. Excellent writers could have been ignored by the mainstream market previously if they were outside of the norm and sometimes found in baskets with bad apples (e.g. "alt-right"). The non-mainstream is actually a collection of smaller minority groups -- it tends to be the mainstream that is more homogenous. It doesn't surprise me that Substack has found success by not treating the non-mainstream as equally worthy of scorn. It also won't surprise me when they start to attract more writers from the mainstream. The mainstream can sometimes appear to be totally homogenous in their hatred of liberal content policies but this is mostly due to the efforts of a small minority. If the offering is good, others will slowly come aboard. As another commentator noted (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31084791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31084791), Substack's policy is politically more in line with neoliberal complaints of censorship than the complaints from those in the alt-right. (Their comment is better than mine since it is a more direct response to the core of your comment, which could be read as suggesting that use of Substack points towards sympathy for the "alt-right".)

slg 5y ago

People are pushing many indepedent flavors of "anti-censorship" at the moment. Some of them clearly are dog whistle's for the alt-right by people who just want to say bigoted things without repercussions. The Substack version is more inline with the neoliberal complaints of censorship. This letter from Harper's Magazine[1] from a couple years back is a great example of this thinking. Whether the signees of this letter are "excellent writers" is certainly up for debate, but most of these clearly aren't alt-right thinkers. [1] - https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/ https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

nokcha 5y ago

> "Anti-censorship" is hugely unpopular with the mainstream intellectual community these days. I'd disagree. It's unpopular with left-leaning mainstream audiences, but among intellectuals who write for a living, I imagine that extra assurances of not getting kicked off the platform are rather attractive.

slg 5y ago
>It's unpopular with left-leaning mainstream audiences It is truly wild how HN often frames censorship as something coming purely from the left while ignoring the laws coming out of conservative state legislatures across the country. There is a wide spectrum of people both pushing for censorship and pushing against it.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  Not to mention the censorship pressure exerted by family values groups’ complaints to the FCC. Those are generally very conservative groups who want to protect children from seeing a breast.
- farmerstan 5y ago
  What is insane is when people frame anti-censorship as an alt-right value. That offends people like me who are staunchly liberal but completely anti-censorship to my core.
  - evandale 5y ago
    It's so pervasive that you can't even have an anti-censorship opinions on Reddit without getting lumped in with the alt-right and banned from subreddits. The nuance of "I disagree with you but defend your right to say it" is dying a painful death. Defend free speech and get accused of being alt-right or wanting to say the n-word. Another thing dying is the defense of protests. I made a couple comments in popular Canadian subreddits about the truckers and was banned from a few for saying "protest isn't meant to make people feel happy and if the protestors don't make you feel uncomfortable you either agree with them or they're not doing their job". I got banned from one with the reason being "be gone nazi scum go try parler".

saint_fiasco 5y ago

It's unpopular among people who consume the writings of the intellectual community. It's less popular among intellectuals themselves, and even the pro-censorship intellectuals only want other people to be censored, not themselves.

bigmealbigmeal 5y ago

Do you have any sources that indicate anti-censorship is “hugely unpopular” with the mainstream intellectual community? For example, esteemed scientists speaking out against it? It may be important here to separate journalists and political activists from the intellectual community. Not to say that they aren’t intellectuals, but the issue could be limited to that set of intellectuals in particular.

kyrra 5y ago
See NYT "hit" pieces on substack: * https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/business/media/substack-newsletter-competition.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/business/media/substack-n... * https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/business/media/substack-growth-newsletters.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/13/business/media/substack-g... Along with one of Substack's founders responding to it: https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1514318085083340807 https://twitter.com/lulumeservey/status/1514318085083340807
- bigmealbigmeal 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing these. From what I can see, the criticism here is coming entirely from journalists/activists. It makes me wonder: how many of the opinions that we are exposed to originate from journalists/activists? How much are we mixing up the opinions of these people as representing the opinions of scientists, engineers and philosophers? How much are we mixing up the opinions of journalists/activists as representing those of your average person? I'm starting to see a deep issue with the preeminence of journalist/activist opinion.

sixo 5y ago

It's well-aligned with "writers own their audience" - together this positions substack as a platform for monetizing writing, not as more of a publisher.

temp8964 5y ago

> "Anti-censorship" is hugely unpopular with the mainstream intellectual community these days. I don’t know where did you get this idea? What did you mean “mainstream intellectual community”? Do you have any evidence like mass signatures supporting censorship from mainstream intellectuals? People consume too much Reddit / Twitter sometimes live in an alternative reality.

russellbeattie 5y ago

Totally agree. "Anti-censorship" is definitely a dog whistle call out to the right wing: "Feel free to lie and spread dangerous misinformation on our platform." I don't know if Substack actually allows "Fauci is the devil, all liberals are socialist pedophiles" writers on their site, but that's what they're promising to support.