Substack, Nazis, and “Gaslight”
More Substack means more “gaslight,” more Nazis
Substack cannot be trusted.
In 2018, one of the co-founders, Hamish McKenzie, who had just wrapped up a job at Tesla and published a book about Elon Musk, told me:
Substack is intended as an antidote to the prevailing media environment. We started thinking about what would ultimately become Substack when Chris, the CEO, was writing an essay about how online advertising and the rise of tech platforms had led to this world in which it was more profitable to spread sensationalism, outrage, and divisiveness than it was to spread truth . . .
Sounded grand. I’d started “The Geyser” on Substack just before this interview, and had high hopes for a long time on the platform based on what appeared to be aligned philosophies and a strong belief in the subscription model. Combined, those two should work, I thought.
Then, in 2022, Substack changed its philosophies, and when that happened, it hit two bad inflection points — it started hosting major anti-vax newsletters that anyone with half a brain knew were spreading lies, and embraced the cyberlibertarian defense of “free speech” as equating selection to “censorship.”
I left Substack at this point, and moved to Ghost. This helped me maintain a sense of integrity, and it saved me money, as Ghost charges far less to do about the same things. The 10% revenue share Substack charges adds up, it turns out, while paying a flat annual hosting fee lets you get free and clear of the sunk costs pretty quickly.
I’m glad I left for both financial and philosophical reasons, and am consistently reminded why I left because bad things keep happening on Substack.
- Major anti-vax and MAHA activists are massive presences on the site, using it to promote all kinds of nonsense, including “gaslight” journals and “gaslight” preprints.
In 2024, Substack was found to be hosting Nazi and white nationalist newsletters. Three days after the story broke, Substack claimed it was removing these publications after reviewing its existing policies. Whoopsie!
Last week, Taylor Lorenz reported that Substack was promoting Nazi and white nationalist newsletters across its recommendation system. She took this screen shot:
