Watching people celebrate a platform, and even remain on it, after it’s been public for a while now that the platform sees nothing wrong in making money from hate speech (to put it mildly, more like fascism and naziism), is a lot like watching authors submit and sign contracts with publishers that have been screwing over authors for years, but they think it’s not going to affect them. It doesn’t matter what spots the leopard wears, in these cases, it is almost always going to eat your face. The question is how quickly do you realize it and how much it motivates you to move. “It won’t happen to me” has got to be the most insidious phrase in whatever language you speak, because it contains an elitism that the reason why it happened to others is because they did something wrong. Something that you, of course, won’t be doing. And yet, like a technological (and publishing) Cassandra, I know eventually it’s going to bite them in the ass. Or eat their face. Or whatever. It isn’t going to be happy either way.
The current contender for this? Substack.
In late 2023/early 2024 what had been percolating in tech and online circles finally became public: Substack has a nazi problem. Like it sees nothing wrong with making money from newsletters promoting hate, nazi rhetoric, and antisemitism. In a token gesture, they added a report button and removed five blogs, and for the most part the noise has died down. (Here’s a Feb 2024 article from The Verge on the topic.) Except, if you know, you know, and I am not the only one who tries very hard not to subscribe to any Substack newsletters and looks askance at all of the big names flocking to substack.
At this point, remaining on Substack is akin to remaining on Musk’s X. You cannot be there and not be supporting right-wing, authoritarian, and fascist behavior because if you monetize your Substack newsletter, blog, whatever you want to call it, you’re paying 10% of your sales to a company that just doesn’t give a damn what you say so long as you pay.
The ONE THING people with large audiences refuse to do to fight fascism is stop publishing on Substack. People are starting to publish on Substack—this month—because Substack keeps paying people to ignore their own moral center. You can’t fight fascism in a Nazi bar. You. Just. Fucking. Can’t.
— Imani Gandy (@angryblacklady.bsky.social) April 21, 2025 at 5:58 AM
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Then there is this which was in response to an article talking about how group chats created an alliance between techbros and the far right.
When I talk about how Substack was funded as part of a deliberate strategy to make a platform where they could mainstream their fascist ideas, this is the group I am talking about. The other suckers who put their newsletters on the platform are playing into this agenda.
— Anil Dash (@anildash.com) April 27, 2025 at 10:58 PM
The thing is, since Substack takes 10% of your subscriber revenue regardless of the number of subscribers at some point, you’re losing money by staying there versus other platforms where you can make more. This article recently crossed my feed about Substackers who left actually making more money now that they are on a platform with a better pricing model.
Originally, I was going to make this blog about how you can make more off of Substack (see that link above), but I’ve actually spent a few weeks thinking about this blog and here’s the truth.
The system is broken. Giving in and paying the bad actors is exactly what they want you to do.
Instead, I am encouraging authors to be resourceful, be creative. And yes, I’m going to repeat the mantra I’ve been screaming since the early 2000s. You must build your own business on a platform you control as much as possible. Can you backup your data/export it to another provider if it turns out they suck/fold/go under/or become difficult to work with? WordPress isn’t perfect. Gods no, and I hate Automattic the company with the fiery burning passion of a million suns. But you know what? WordPress is open source and distributed which means I don’t have to do business directly with Automattic if I don’t want to. And I’m happy to share with you how not to too.
But aren’t all companies bad? Like we don’t have a choice anymore.
I’ve heard that line as to why people are remaining on Substack and pretty much giving in on trying to have any sort of social conscience on their tech use. So let me put it to you this way? If you found out that your favorite beverage of choice was laced with enough lead and arsenic to cause permanent damage, would you still drink it? I sincerely hope not. Let’s make this a little more realistic. If you found out that your favorite beverage or food was made with a chemical that could, over time, cause health issues you’d rather avoid. Wouldn’t you start to make some adjustments in your drinking/eating habits? I’d like to think so.
The bottom line is yes, corporate owned social media sucks and is most likely partnering with the same forces as Substack. There’s also a reason why I, for example, don’t by Amazon or Facebook ads and limit my use of Facebook. I’m starting to move my ebook and physical book purchases away from Amazon (This grad student loves Thriftbooks!) And personally I am loving spending my time on Bluesky or Mastodon, though neither platform is perfect either.
Our goal isn’t perfect. Our goal is to follow Maya Angelou’s very poignant and powerful quote: “When we know better, we do better.”
That’s all we can do. One step at a time. Let’s all do better as a writing community.
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