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> You're confusing "effectively" with "perfectly." We'll see! :) Can you please share what you think Substack's content policy should be? Just your rough draf

> You're confusing "effectively" with "perfectly." We'll see! :) Can you please share what you think Substack's content policy should be? Just your rough draft of content guidelines that would "effectively censor Nazi ideology". I'm not talking about vague platitudes but actual rules or guidelines for authors and commenters to follow.

krapp 3y ago
No, I'm not going to play that game. The validity of my argument does not rest on my ability to draft a specific content policy for a website. I'm not an expert in that field and I assume the process of doing so to standard would require far more time and effort than this conversation is worth. Substack's actual content policy is here[0], and as you can read it already contains prohibitions of various kinds of content. Feel free to substitute "Nazi ideology" with "material that advocates, threatens, or shows you causing harm to yourself, other people, or animals" or "sexually exploitative content" if you like. We're just arguing about where to draw the lines in the sand, but clearly drawing those lines is possible. [0]https://substack.com/content https://substack.com/content
- dbrueck 3y ago
  This whole story is about the fact that the articles you want censored are allowed under Substack's content policy, so I don't think Substack's content policy is a good example for what you're after, no? Like I pointed out at the very beginning, efforts to censor always seem to break down, and one reason for that is that it's hard to come up with coherent policies. It's easy to speak at a super high level about how things ought to be, but once you try to distill those ideas into something that has any practical value - i.e. something that can be actually used and applied - it all starts to fall apart. The result is that platform providers end up in one of 2 main camps: 1) The content does not represent us at all. We set some very broad limits, but for the most part, people can say what they say and we're just providing the platform. 2) Content has to conform to our standards, and application of those standards can and will appear to be completely arbitrary. Neither approach is without its problems, and both approaches anger a lot of people. In general, though, if you're in the business of trying to attract creators and help them build audiences on your platform, #1 is much less bad than #2 - the latter will either limit your ability to get off the ground or will become a millstone when you do.

krapp 3y ago

No, I'm not going to play that game. The validity of my argument does not rest on my ability to draft a specific content policy for a website. I'm not an expert in that field and I assume the process of doing so to standard would require far more time and effort than this conversation is worth. Substack's actual content policy is here[0], and as you can read it already contains prohibitions of various kinds of content. Feel free to substitute "Nazi ideology" with "material that advocates, threatens, or shows you causing harm to yourself, other people, or animals" or "sexually exploitative content" if you like. We're just arguing about where to draw the lines in the sand, but clearly drawing those lines is possible. [0]https://substack.com/content https://substack.com/content

dbrueck 3y ago
This whole story is about the fact that the articles you want censored are allowed under Substack's content policy, so I don't think Substack's content policy is a good example for what you're after, no? Like I pointed out at the very beginning, efforts to censor always seem to break down, and one reason for that is that it's hard to come up with coherent policies. It's easy to speak at a super high level about how things ought to be, but once you try to distill those ideas into something that has any practical value - i.e. something that can be actually used and applied - it all starts to fall apart. The result is that platform providers end up in one of 2 main camps: 1) The content does not represent us at all. We set some very broad limits, but for the most part, people can say what they say and we're just providing the platform. 2) Content has to conform to our standards, and application of those standards can and will appear to be completely arbitrary. Neither approach is without its problems, and both approaches anger a lot of people. In general, though, if you're in the business of trying to attract creators and help them build audiences on your platform, #1 is much less bad than #2 - the latter will either limit your ability to get off the ground or will become a millstone when you do.