There was a time when more journalism was like this, but, well.
im so sorry for the tiktok link and also the substack content but, well, I don't know how to better explain it than the interviewer having gotten a non-answer the third time, asks outright if substack would ever censor racism, and the substack CEO just sorta blinks for at least an entire minute.
edit: the transcript of the uncut version is even worse https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/14/substack-ceo-chris-best-doesnt-realize-hes-just-become-the-nazi-bar/
(fwiw Patel does quote hate right off the bat so, be warned)
link (embed under readmore)
Transcript follows:
Nilay Patel: "[quotes racists] you're going to censor that, right?"
CEO: "So we do have a terms of service that have narrowly prescribed things that are not allowed. There-- There are extreme cases, and I'm not going to get into like the--"
NP: "Wait. Hold on. In America, in 2023, that's not so extreme. right? 'we should not allow as many brown people in the country.' Not so extreme [in America]. Do you allow that on Substack? Would you allow that on Substack Notes?"
CEO: takes breath
CEO: "I think the like, the way we think about this is we want to put the writers and the readers in charge--"
NP: "No, I really want you to answer that question."
CEO: "I'm not gonna get into *gesticulates dismissively* gotcha content moderation--"
NP: "This is not a gotcha question! I'm a brown person. Do you think people on Substack should say I should get kicked out of the country?"
CEO: "I'm not gonna engage in... *gesticulates* y'know, content moderation 'would you or wont you at this or that?' content moderation ques--"
NP: "But it's the thing that you have to do."
CEO: blinks
NP: blinks
CEO: blinks
CEO: blinks
NP: blinks
CEO: blinks
NP: "Right? I mean you have to make these decisions, don't you?"
CEO: blinks
CEO: *looking away from camera, [I am genuinely unsure if it's at a handler's chat or out of shame]*
CEO: "The way that we think about this is yes, there's going to be a terms of service. We are gonna have... y'know, a- a- we have content policies that are deliberately tuned to allow lots of things that we disagree with, that we strongly disagree with. We think we have a strong commitment to freedom of speech, freedom of the press. We think these are, y'know, essential ingredients in a free society. We think that it would be a failure for us to build a new kind of network that can't support those ideals. And we want to design the network in a way where people are in control of their experience, where they're able to do that stuff. We're at the very early innings of that. We don't have all the answers for how these things work. We are making a new thing. And we are, you know, literally we launched this thing one day ago, we're going to have to figure a lot of this stuff out. I don't think it's--"
NP: "You have to figure that out? You have to figure out 'Should we allow overt racism on Substack Notes'? You have to figure that out?"
CEO: "no, I wo-- I'm not going to engage in content moderation gotch--"
NP: "you know this is a very bad response to this question, right? You're aware that you-- you've blundered into this. You should just say no."
CEO: blinks
NP: blinks
CEO: blinks
NP: "I'm wondering what's keeping you from saying no"
NP: blinks
CEO: blinks
tl;dr, substack pays writers, doesn't tell you who, and it keeps turning out they're mostly right wing (and those tend to get paid more) because, well, hate sells.
