It’s been brought to my attention (and that of my publisher, Draconum Studio) that Substack’s content moderation policy, while banning spam, (at least some) pornography, and incitements to violence, explicitly does not ban Nazi (and other racist-facist) propaganda. Their stated position is that “we will defend free expression, and we will stick to our hands-off approach to content moderation”, and that they do not believe that censorship – by demonetising sites that publish extreme views – was a solution to the problem, and instead made it worse.
And in the broadest possible terms, I sort of agree – shutting down discussion makes the people who spout these crazy ideas even crazier, as the only place they get to discuss them is their own echo-chamber social bubbles where the crazy ideas are seen as normal. This is how radicalisation works. However, when the crazy ideas literally involve killing, torturing, or genocide against an entire cultural or ethnic group, then… not so much. Here’s the thing: Naziism (and other similar white-supremicist racist-facism), by its very nature encourages and incites violence against people based on their ethnicity, cultural identity, gender, or sexual orientation. That’s kind of what it is. And I can’t support giving those view a platform.
I’m not closing my mailing list, nor is Draconum Studio closing theirs, but neither I nor my publisher will be giving Substack any money (or, by extension, offering paid mailing list options via their platform) for the forseeable future.
The outcome for any of my readers who care is that my new novel, The Black Keep, is not going to be serialised in Draconum Studio’s subscription-based mailing list (which they have closed down). It is going to continue being serialised on my patreon, so if you’d like to read it as it comes out, go find it there! New chapter every fortnight, and subscribers get the completed novel in ebook format as a free subscription bonus when it’s finished.