Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Document Notes
Content moderation vs free speech
Highlights
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the Substack team is mixing up “free speech rights” — which involve what the government can limit — with their own expressive rights and their own reputation. I don’t support laws that stop Nazis from saying what they want to say, but that doesn’t mean I allow Nazis to put signs on my front lawn. This is the key fundamental issue anyone discussing free speech has to understand. There is a vast and important difference between (1) the government passing laws that stifle speech and (2) private property owners deciding whether or not they wish to help others, including terrible people, speak.
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Because, as private property owners, you have your own free speech rights in the rights of association. So while I support the rights of Nazis to speak, that does not mean I’m going to assist them in using my property to speak, or assist them in making money.
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Ken “Popehat” White explained it well in his own (yes, Substack) post on all of this.
First, McKenzie’s post consistently blurs the roles and functions of the state and the individual. For instance, he pushes the hoary trope that censoring Nazis just drives them underground where they are more dangerous: “But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.” That may be true for the state, but is it really true for private actors? Do I make the Nazi problem worse by blocking Nazis who appear in my comments? Does a particular social media platform make Nazis worse by deciding that they, personally, are not going to host Nazis? How do you argue that, when there are a vast array of places for Nazis to post on the internet? Has Gab fallen? Is Truth Social no more?
McKenzie continues the blurring by suggesting that being platformed by private actors is a civil right: “We believe that supporting individual rights and civil liberties while subjecting ideas to open discourse is the best way to strip bad ideas of their power. We are committed to upholding and protecting freedom of expression, even when it hurts.” That’s fine, but nobody has the individual right, civil liberty, or freedom of expression to be on Substack if Substack doesn’t want them there. In fact that’s part of Substack’s freedom of expression and civil liberties — to build the type of community it wants, that expresses its values. If Substack’s values is “we publish everybody” (sort of, as noted below) that’s their right, but a different approach doesn’t reflect a lack of support for freedom of expression. McKenzie is begging the question — assuming his premise that support of freedom of expression requires Substack to accept Nazis, not just for the government to refrain from suppressing Nazis.
✏️ This goes back to the eternal debate about moderation and censorship. Do you allow all speech to be free, or do you moderate against speech that goes against certain values? Private spaces have every right to moderate and censor according to values, because that’s a right of theirs, and the country/world/internet is a big place that can accommodate others. Public spaces, governments, etc… things get messy when they mess with freedom of speech. If I were a government and I wanted to ban hurtful speech/actions, how would I do that while maintaining freedom of speech? 🔗 View Highlight
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block plenty of 1st Amendment protected speech, including hate speech, sexually explicit content, doxxing, and spam. There are good reasons that a site might block any of that speech, but it then stands out when you decide to say “but, whoa whoa whoa, Nazis, that’s a step too far, and an offense to free speech.” It’s all about choices. Your reputation is what you allow. And Substack has decided that its reputation is “sex is bad, but Nazis are great.”
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Supporting free speech has to mean supporting free speech against government attempts at suppression and also supporting the right of private platforms to make their own decisions about to allow and what not to allow. Because if you say that private platforms must allow all speech, then you don’t actually get more speech. You get a lot less. Because most platforms will decide they don’t want to be enabling Nazis, and only the ones who eagerly cater to Nazis survive. That leaves fewer places to speak, and fewer people willing to speak in places adjacent to Nazis.