The Atlantic Comes For SubStack, Freddie deBoer Reciprocates

There’s been a drumbeat from certain circles that the popular newsletter publisher SubStack is allowing “nazi content” upon its platform. This is not to be confused with the drumbeat from certain circles about “nazi content” on Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and whatever else platform is currently needing to be written about over their content moderation. After the The Atlantic ran not one but two pieces from writers declaring they were leaving the platform, Freddie deBoer took to his SubStack with his unsubtle take, naming of names, and touching on what he thinks drives these declarations of righteous logging off.

From Freddie deBoer’s SubStack

The Nazi content that Katz found (and reported on with sufficient inaccuracy that The Atlantic had to issue a correction) is an absolutely tiny portion of Substack, and no one has demonstrated that any of it was getting surfaced thanks to Substack’s discovery tools, at all, ever. But even if it was, why is it the discovery tools that are disqualifying? What is the fundamental moral principle here?

Amusingly, the whole “it’s not the hosting, it’s the surfacing” line is functionally identical to Musk’s much-mocked “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” line.

No, I think what’s happening here is pretty simple. Broderick, and Newton, and the sublimely self-righteous Rusty Foster, and others like them are creatures of the media professional-social human centipede that I’ve criticized for so long. They are firmly ensconced in the status hierarchies and petty frenemy networks that define that space. Like most people in media, I imagine, they’re feeling a little lost over the demise of media Twitter thanks to Elon Musk’s whims, given that it was the organizing force that did so much to define the culture of the industry and which handed out the social rewards that have had to replace the financial rewards that no longer exist. These guys are feeling pretty shitty about their industry and its economics and the fact that Media High School appears to no longer be in session. They’d like to goose subscriptions and they’d like to do so in a way that burnishes their credentials as good guys who really care. They look around and notice that the kind of people who write overwrought essays for The Cut about how the latest Billie Eilish album destroyed patriarchy or whatever are not fond of Substack, principally because a lot of us make more on Substack in a month than they make in a year writing overwrought essays for The Cut. And these good white men say, aha! Market opportunity! And that’s why they leave. That’s 90% of what you need to understand.

Here’s the thing: you can just fucking say that. “People in my professional and social circles don’t like Substack, and I care too much about what they think, so I’m switching to a different service.” Cool. Go for it. “My subscribers are mostly the kind of muddled liberals who boast about the moral superiority of their electric Hyundai, which was built with minerals mined by literal child slaves, and they don’t like Substack for reasons arising from that same basic confusion.” Understood. Get that bread, honey. But please be real with me. Newton in particular is savvy enough to know what he’s doing and why. Please, spare me from the self-fellating theatrics about how you’re too pure of a soul to sully your hands in the waters of Substack, which is just the internet. (I’ve got news for you boys: it’s all the internet! It’s all interconnected. That was the deal you signed up for the first time you used a broadband connection.) “My newsletter is a business, and I’m leaving Substack as a business decision.” There. That’s all you have to do.

But that doesn’t get p****hat liberals shilling your wares for you on Mark “Genocide in Myanmar” Zuckerberg’s Threads by Facebook, does it now?

You can read the whole thing here: