Substack and the Nazis

We have recently had a kerfluffle; online publisher Substack has been criticized for publishing Nazis. Jonathan M. Katz at the Atlantic wrote about it at length, and a group of Substack authors wrote a letter asking Substack to get rid of the Nazis. Unfortunately, Substack is one of the few places on the internet where a freelance author can build a following and make money at it, so it’s hard for authors to walk away. Substack’s publisher responded with a letter defending the practice as free speech, which is just nonsense – Substack blocks plenty of authors, just not Nazis.

Publishing is a difficult business. I know of at least one major science fiction imprint which for many years relied partly on a dependable revenue source – an author who wrote bondage fantasies. But there are authors that one doesn’t take on, even if the money is good. What literary agent or booking agent would take on Nazis? The only publishers who publish Nazis are Nazi publishers.

Blogging sites like Substack, Medium, and Buttondown are in between newspapers and magazines and open social media sites. In a newspaper or magazine every piece of content is there because the publisher wants it to be there. In an open social media site, site members can put up whatever they want, subject to the site’s moderation provisions. On a blogging site authors can contribute what they want and it’s usually run. But there is no obligation on the part of the site management to take on all authors and the authors they take on reflect the views of the site management.

I wouldn’t routinely read or subscribe to a publication that regularly publishes Nazis. I do not subscribe to The New York Times both because it has been for every foolish war of my lifetime and also because of what it routinely publishes; its coverage of Hilary Clinton (“But her emails…”) is a large part of why Donald Trump was elected President. I likewise do not subscribe to the The Washington Post. And yet The New York Times and The Washington Post also have the resources to fund serious reporting, and with the fall of journalism, this is increasingly rare.

I may never subscribe to any author’s Substack blog for the same reasons, and yet there are authors there who I would like to support. Free speech does not demand a print publisher to publish any garbage that comes along. It likewise does not require an electronic publisher to do so.