Two things:
1. This is a great summary of how morally and ethically bankrupt Substack's actual position is. They currently prohibit calls to violence, doxxing, harmful activities, and porn. So they clearly think speech is something they have every right to limit on their platform (and they're right about that). They just don't want to limit nazi speech because, well, we're left to assume that they just like nazis.
https://popehat.substack.com/p/substack-has-a-nazi-opportunity
@fraying Substack's position is also just factually unsupported. They are using the classic argument that suppressing bigoted views actually strengthens them and that subjecting them to debate will naturally defeat them. I'd like to believe that, and I actually used to believe it. But to my knowledge people who have actually researched the question have just empirically found this to be an incorrect prediction about how human discourse functions. So I changed my beliefs based on the evidence, and so should these folks.
@fraying I do think Popehat got the number of a certain subset of Mastodon users. 😆
"As a writer and reader, I decide what’s important to me when I choose a site. ...sometimes it’s an ethos I want to endorse, or be seen as endorsing. Do I want to go on Twitter to signify that I am not a snowflake and that I am open to discussions of [antisemitic conspiracy theories]? Do I want to go on Mastodon to signify that I believe human perfection can be achieved through scolding?"