My New Substack Policy

Substack has a Nazi problem. Though I'd say their actual problem is that they're okay with that. Because of this, my policy has always been that if you have a Substack, I'm not subscribing to it. Not on a paid tier, not on a free tier. It hasn't always stopped me from reading the occasional post or sharing one. I am now changing that policy.

I recently read Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters, and while it wasn't exactly telling me anything new, it made me re-think me even reading Substack and sharing posts.

I share posts through my Notes and Link pages. I'm changing my policy from not just not subscribing to Substacks, but to not sharing them either. I can't in good conscience direct eyes to a platform that is fine making money on blatant Nazi content. There's not even plausible deniability.

There are other platforms out there like Ghost or Beehiiv that allow writers to get their content out to their audience without putting money in the hands of absolutely horrible people. And while I have not used either service, I know some Substacks I used to follow have moved to those platforms easily enough. An while I have no personal experience migrating, Molly White's Citation Needed and Casey Newton's Platformer made the switch successfully.

So if you're on Substack, I'd kindly ask that you think about whether you want to remain on there. Substack is surprisingly open with its authors and allows its authors to migrate with their audience. Molly White even wrote about her experience moving to Ghost. I know one of the Substacks I subscribed to moved to Beehiiv and there was no interruption for me. I continued to get his newsletters in my inbox without so much as a blip.

It's a shame too because there have been some that I've eyed up, only to find that they're hosted on Substack. Oh well.