Thanks, Sam, for this thorough and rational recap. This is the best thing I’ve read on the topic, and I am someone who has been ambivalent and who has had sympathy with both sides of the controversy.
The timing of the mass smear campaign is so convenient. Hmm! Thank you for dissecting the history and all the unravelings with utmost sensibility and objectivity.
Thanks, Sam. Didn’t know Casey was in on this too. Referring to an existing platform in the past tense is such a playground tactic. This really pisses me off. I am glad you were able to write yourselves into a measured position towards the end. That is admirable. Gives me hope for my own thought process. Like the musical accompaniment. Haters gonna hate, right?
Thanks for writing this recap. This must have been an unfun exercise but necessary.
Good to know I’m not the only one who was unsettled by Newton having private meetings with management to deplatform sites.
Unfortunately I’m so burned out on this thing, I’ve only cheering on folks like you who are fighting the good fight in your posts comments, but I’ve given up discussing it on Notes.
We should not be afraid to discuss ANYTHING. ANYTHING. Yes, there are ideas which pretty much everyone agrees are bad. But I don't see that as a reason to put up a THOU SHALT NOT sign.
Well done. Thank you for holding the line steady. There's so much drama and so little substance, it's nourishing to have a clear accounting of what's transpired.
I am furious at The Atlantic for continuing this crusade against independent writing. If this company, the best thing to ever happen to writers, goes under because of culture wars painting them to be something they are absolutely not, that will really be a tragedy.
That's a lot of information! Good on you for looking it all up!
I think one citation worth adding for the limited appeal of these right-wing newsletters is this: Substack's audience, for the most part, are apparently not largely right-wing (and certainly not as left-wing after the Atlantic's attack) but middle-of-the-road types, formalistic outcasts of some sort or another (like myself; that, from the sound of it, includes you as well) and dissidents; some of the political type, but mostly of an intellectual sort. The Jan Patockas and Cardinal Wyszynskis, rather than the Charter 77ers and Polish shipyard workers. Video content appears to draw a greater share of the politicos. Although a New England secession movement based on Whiteness strikes me as a doomed cause no matter the outlet. Those that are successful with appeal to conservative thinking appear to be those that aren't blatantly political. Those who talk about myth and the ancestry of the West, for instance.
Not getting this appears to have been my mistake. As one who has not hesitated to state my antagonism to Communism/Wokeness, I've learnt this the hard way as well; much as Wokeness and its ideological variants are the greatest threat to literature, I guess people would rather go to YouTube or X to hear about that than a place where the written word has more importance. While it sucks for me unless I change - and I'll probably have to - it's good for Substack: it means its users expect great (and non-partisan) things of it in this not-so-great time that other online places haven't lived up to. And as long as that's the case, it doesn't matter if there are neo-Nazis here or not. As you pointed out, they don't seem to last that long. Which is the exact reaction one might expect in a genuine free speech environment. This should surprise no one, but right now there's a Brown Scare that is doing more to amplify insecurities in the West than actual neo-Nazis could ever hope to accomplish.
But I think this could also undermine Substack in the future: if it is being regarded as a moderate/centrist escape prism, a Hallmark reputation is not exactly a compelling reputation for Substack to have at a time that appears to demand radical and/or extreme changes. I first heard of Substack when Glenn Greenwald came over here in 2020 because his own company fired him for the high crime of criticizing Joe Biden; that kind of anti-freedom bs is not the kind of thing one can hide from, or resolve with a moderate solution. Substack is very much a refuge: the San Francisco of the Internet. But San Francisco was only really a left-wing refuge, and that's what caused it to fail. A genuine refuge in this day and age has to be multitudinous.
As for pogroms: let's not forget the one in New York recently, where pro-Hamas lunatics chased Jewish students into a library. Maybe in the 90s American or New York sensibilities were simply too fragile to call Crown Heights a pogrom. But the "it can't happen here" mentality holds no water today. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/jewish-university-students-barricade-themselves-in-library-amid-spate-of-pro-palestinian-protests-in-us/ar-AA1iXdHX I guess some will argue that it wasn't a pogrom because no one died, or there were just a few targets: was it a micro-pogrom then? I won't claim to know all the scientific technicalities of what constitutes a pogrom: the "walks like a duck" rule tends to work for me.
Oh and one last thing: I'd like to use this free speech atmosphere to tell the Atlantic to go fuck themselves. :-) I hope every Substacker from now on only mentions the Atlantic as we might the butt of a stupid joke. In the culture war, CNN has been beautifully discredited with this strategy.
Fantastic overview here, good sir. I'm mostly thankful for writers like yourself who insist on trying to report the facts objectively in favor of continuing a complex discussion versus declaring a moratorium on X, Y, or Z. For a major publication like The Atlantic to continually label a primary competitor as "pro-Nazi" is of course absurd, but then that's the strategy: the Big Lie is one term for this (suggest something so improbable and repeat it enough that it can't NOT be true), but I daren't suggest some folks are peddling a Big Lie about Substack, because then I'd be conflating whatever their ongoing fears of Substack are with a political tactic invented by Nazis--and that would be absurd, wouldn't it?
Speaking of accuracy, Semite isn't another term for Jew. It also refers to other ethnic groups INCLUDING Arabs; i.e. the Hamas for example are Semites.
"Semitic people or Semites is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group associated with people of the Middle East, including Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians. The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping "Semitic languages" in linguistics"
[...]
Objections to the usage of the term, such as the obsolete nature of the term "Semitic" as a racial term, have been raised since at least the 1930s."
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary defines "Semite" as: "a member of any of the peoples whose language is Semitic, including the Hebrews, Arabs, Assyrians . . ."
How about using a different, more accurate phrase such as, anti-Jewish?
I'm new to Substack, and so far I'm liking it very much. I also spend time on Facebook where I have many real and substantial friends. I detest the AI moderation on Facebook. Periodically I get these little warnings that I have done something wrong and I will be punished for x amount of time. The AI never tell me what I've done wrong, simply that I have "violated the terms of service". The result is that I am extremely negative toward the idea of moderation.
I've been wondering what makes one a Nazi? If I change my icon to a swastika, would that make me a Nazi?
What if I explain that my swastika predates Nazi Germany. Am I then not a Nazi?
Seems like much ado about not much to me.
Thinking further, it seems like opposing vaccinations could be rationally expected to kill thousands of persons. More than merely espousing Nazism. Will they come for the anti-vaxxers next?
I love how this breakdown of the disingenuous cultivation of a moral panic does not itself descend into emotive rhetoric. Fine writing at a time when it's hard for either side to see through the red mist.
Took us two months, but finally someone actually named the alleged Nazi sites, why they could be characterized as such, and how big their actual reach is. Thanks for doing better journalism than anyone at The Atlantic or NYT.
Thanks, Sam, for this thorough and rational recap. This is the best thing I’ve read on the topic, and I am someone who has been ambivalent and who has had sympathy with both sides of the controversy.
The timing of the mass smear campaign is so convenient. Hmm! Thank you for dissecting the history and all the unravelings with utmost sensibility and objectivity.
Thanks, Sam. Didn’t know Casey was in on this too. Referring to an existing platform in the past tense is such a playground tactic. This really pisses me off. I am glad you were able to write yourselves into a measured position towards the end. That is admirable. Gives me hope for my own thought process. Like the musical accompaniment. Haters gonna hate, right?
Thanks for writing this recap. This must have been an unfun exercise but necessary.
Good to know I’m not the only one who was unsettled by Newton having private meetings with management to deplatform sites.
Unfortunately I’m so burned out on this thing, I’ve only cheering on folks like you who are fighting the good fight in your posts comments, but I’ve given up discussing it on Notes.
Great summary.
We should not be afraid to discuss ANYTHING. ANYTHING. Yes, there are ideas which pretty much everyone agrees are bad. But I don't see that as a reason to put up a THOU SHALT NOT sign.
Sam - really well written article here. Appreciate your in depth overview and rational mindset.
Well done. Thank you for holding the line steady. There's so much drama and so little substance, it's nourishing to have a clear accounting of what's transpired.
I am furious at The Atlantic for continuing this crusade against independent writing. If this company, the best thing to ever happen to writers, goes under because of culture wars painting them to be something they are absolutely not, that will really be a tragedy.
That's a lot of information! Good on you for looking it all up!
I think one citation worth adding for the limited appeal of these right-wing newsletters is this: Substack's audience, for the most part, are apparently not largely right-wing (and certainly not as left-wing after the Atlantic's attack) but middle-of-the-road types, formalistic outcasts of some sort or another (like myself; that, from the sound of it, includes you as well) and dissidents; some of the political type, but mostly of an intellectual sort. The Jan Patockas and Cardinal Wyszynskis, rather than the Charter 77ers and Polish shipyard workers. Video content appears to draw a greater share of the politicos. Although a New England secession movement based on Whiteness strikes me as a doomed cause no matter the outlet. Those that are successful with appeal to conservative thinking appear to be those that aren't blatantly political. Those who talk about myth and the ancestry of the West, for instance.
Not getting this appears to have been my mistake. As one who has not hesitated to state my antagonism to Communism/Wokeness, I've learnt this the hard way as well; much as Wokeness and its ideological variants are the greatest threat to literature, I guess people would rather go to YouTube or X to hear about that than a place where the written word has more importance. While it sucks for me unless I change - and I'll probably have to - it's good for Substack: it means its users expect great (and non-partisan) things of it in this not-so-great time that other online places haven't lived up to. And as long as that's the case, it doesn't matter if there are neo-Nazis here or not. As you pointed out, they don't seem to last that long. Which is the exact reaction one might expect in a genuine free speech environment. This should surprise no one, but right now there's a Brown Scare that is doing more to amplify insecurities in the West than actual neo-Nazis could ever hope to accomplish.
But I think this could also undermine Substack in the future: if it is being regarded as a moderate/centrist escape prism, a Hallmark reputation is not exactly a compelling reputation for Substack to have at a time that appears to demand radical and/or extreme changes. I first heard of Substack when Glenn Greenwald came over here in 2020 because his own company fired him for the high crime of criticizing Joe Biden; that kind of anti-freedom bs is not the kind of thing one can hide from, or resolve with a moderate solution. Substack is very much a refuge: the San Francisco of the Internet. But San Francisco was only really a left-wing refuge, and that's what caused it to fail. A genuine refuge in this day and age has to be multitudinous.
As for pogroms: let's not forget the one in New York recently, where pro-Hamas lunatics chased Jewish students into a library. Maybe in the 90s American or New York sensibilities were simply too fragile to call Crown Heights a pogrom. But the "it can't happen here" mentality holds no water today. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/jewish-university-students-barricade-themselves-in-library-amid-spate-of-pro-palestinian-protests-in-us/ar-AA1iXdHX I guess some will argue that it wasn't a pogrom because no one died, or there were just a few targets: was it a micro-pogrom then? I won't claim to know all the scientific technicalities of what constitutes a pogrom: the "walks like a duck" rule tends to work for me.
Oh and one last thing: I'd like to use this free speech atmosphere to tell the Atlantic to go fuck themselves. :-) I hope every Substacker from now on only mentions the Atlantic as we might the butt of a stupid joke. In the culture war, CNN has been beautifully discredited with this strategy.
Great work, Sam. Unlike the rest of the world’s tech media, the one thing Substack doesn’t have is a free speech problem!
Fantastic overview here, good sir. I'm mostly thankful for writers like yourself who insist on trying to report the facts objectively in favor of continuing a complex discussion versus declaring a moratorium on X, Y, or Z. For a major publication like The Atlantic to continually label a primary competitor as "pro-Nazi" is of course absurd, but then that's the strategy: the Big Lie is one term for this (suggest something so improbable and repeat it enough that it can't NOT be true), but I daren't suggest some folks are peddling a Big Lie about Substack, because then I'd be conflating whatever their ongoing fears of Substack are with a political tactic invented by Nazis--and that would be absurd, wouldn't it?
Speaking of accuracy, Semite isn't another term for Jew. It also refers to other ethnic groups INCLUDING Arabs; i.e. the Hamas for example are Semites.
"Semitic people or Semites is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group associated with people of the Middle East, including Arabs, Jews, Akkadians, and Phoenicians. The terminology is now largely unused outside the grouping "Semitic languages" in linguistics"
[...]
Objections to the usage of the term, such as the obsolete nature of the term "Semitic" as a racial term, have been raised since at least the 1930s."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary defines "Semite" as: "a member of any of the peoples whose language is Semitic, including the Hebrews, Arabs, Assyrians . . ."
How about using a different, more accurate phrase such as, anti-Jewish?
I'm new to Substack, and so far I'm liking it very much. I also spend time on Facebook where I have many real and substantial friends. I detest the AI moderation on Facebook. Periodically I get these little warnings that I have done something wrong and I will be punished for x amount of time. The AI never tell me what I've done wrong, simply that I have "violated the terms of service". The result is that I am extremely negative toward the idea of moderation.
I've been wondering what makes one a Nazi? If I change my icon to a swastika, would that make me a Nazi?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
What if I explain that my swastika predates Nazi Germany. Am I then not a Nazi?
Seems like much ado about not much to me.
Thinking further, it seems like opposing vaccinations could be rationally expected to kill thousands of persons. More than merely espousing Nazism. Will they come for the anti-vaxxers next?
I love how this breakdown of the disingenuous cultivation of a moral panic does not itself descend into emotive rhetoric. Fine writing at a time when it's hard for either side to see through the red mist.
Took us two months, but finally someone actually named the alleged Nazi sites, why they could be characterized as such, and how big their actual reach is. Thanks for doing better journalism than anyone at The Atlantic or NYT.
The Katz operation seemed like the bumbling, stumbling JV squad trying out the language and playbook of online cancellation.
The effort was apparent but the operatives were obvious and lame.