I have copied and pasted most of the Atlantic article over at That's Another Fine Mess. When you read it, you will find that Substack has Terms of Service - that everyone here is supposed to abide by and they are supposed to enforce - which bans "hate speech." They have the power to turn off the Nazis tonight. And because the Nazis and their subscribers have all violated the Terms of Service, Substack doesn't need to repay any of them a penny. No one's "First Amendment rights" are violated when a non-governmental body tells someone their views are unwelcome and they are also unwelcome because of their views.
I have urged my readers at That's Another Fine Mess to write to Substack at support@substack.com and tell them how much we appreciate Substack and how happy we would all be if they were to use the powers they already have to rid the site of Nazis, neo-Confederates and all the other White Supremacist pondscum. (Don't use "pondscum" with them) My readers have also restacked the post, shared it at FB, sent it to friends and shared it with Substack comrades for them to pass on. You can do that too.
We can make this viral and we can convince the Silly Con Valley boys that however much they're making off the Nazis, it won't buy them enough soap to clean off the stain, and will harm them with the people they all actually want to have here (they promote our side in their publicity, not the Nazis).
Here's the post. You too can put on your hip waders and clean out the clogged drains here.
Robert, Thank You--for doing the same things you laud us for, and more!
Without your information steadying us with its pragmatic ring of truth, your availability, and your refusal to be distracted by fluff and nonsense, where would we be right now?
I don’t watch any news on TV (other than my two favorite people on MSNBC for a total of 15 minutes a day), or ANY social media at all. If you or HCR, or the few others I trust aren't writing about something, I just don’t need to waste my time on it.
Please keep calling it like it is--and inspiring us to do something for our country....
At the Substack blog of TCinLA, there was also a post about the pro-Trump bias in the NYT and the WP. In response to that, I posted the following, which is what I submitted to Substack through the App pissedconsumer.com, which is reportedly a bona fide site for offering criticism of media and businesses - it had a page for Substack that included a link to emailing their Customer Service. This is just as relevant to Mr. Hubbell calling out the NYT and WP for what the article in The Atlantic had to say.
***********************
The Terms of Service of Substack require that hosted content must not constitute hate speech.
This is not just an issue of posts that are "offensive" or "objectionable."
White supremacy is a belief system based upon hate directed at whichever groups any given white supremacist deems as non-white. This often takes the form of explicitly anti-Semitic tropes and statements. Any content that is explicitly Nazi is inconsistent with your site's rules. It is hate speech.
Profits to Substack deriving from such hate speech are corrupt and unacceptable.
The many white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi newsletters on Substack must be shut down immediately. Examples include Andkon’s Reich Press, White-Papers, Turning Point Stocks, The Tribalist, People's Initiative of New England, and any sites that speak about the "Jewish Question." Any site with which Richard Spencer or Patrick Casey are affiliated is unacceptable (e.g., “Geniuses, in their most consequential forms, appear predominantly among Aryans … orbited by successful Jews” absolutely is trafficking in hate speech).
Use your First Amendment right NOT to publish hate speech.
The New York Times letter did not answer David D’s mention of “false equivalency“ because it is a boilerplate letter, not one written by an individual as an answer to another individual letter. I would not be surprised if it weren’t AI generated.
Just reading Today’s Edition today there are multiple stories covering a variety of subjects and it only the tip of the iceberg. We are all overwhelmed with the shire volume of the news and frankly have a difficult time distinguishing what is true and accurate and what is not. Added to this equation are the crazies who are on social platforms with a voice. The challenge is to shift through all of this and come out of it without surrendering to the noise. Watching the Roslyn Carter funeral and seeing Jimmy Carter and hearing Amy Carter read a letter sent when Jimmy Carter was overseas reminded me of the goodness of people and there are a lot of Carter’s out there and along with us together we all will do the right things to protect our democracy. It will take time and lots of hard work but we will get it done and we need to continue keeping the faith.
I had tried to find a way to contact CNN about their ridiculous story re Biden’s decision not to go to the Climate Conference, and I had a hard time finding a way to give them feedback. An email address I found where one could allegedly send feedback actually wasn’t accurate, and the long note I wrote bounced back to me. I was so frustrated!
I tried again to noodle around on Google and find an avenue to reach them and finally found a comment form. So I filled that out and wrong a detailed note there. I have no idea whether anyone will actually read it, but it felt good to write it,nevertheless.
I think that we can do similar work to keep Substack honest as we do with MSM and journalists. How can we search Substack for the offending content, and report it to the platform’s management? If they won’t moderate their platform we can give them a little help.
Here is the link for Substack’s content guidelines:
On that content page, this is their paragraph on hate:
"Hate
Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition."
And here is what they say about reporting this and other similarly offending content. It includes an email address for alerting them.
" If you encounter content that may be in breach of these guidelines or have any questions about them, you can email us at tos@substackinc.com."
Re: polls. A friend received a call from a pollster whose first question was "what level of education do you have?" When friend answered college graduate, pollster immediately hung up.
I Googled the following: <Substack accounts that include hate speech and white supremacy>, and quickly found an article from the Anti-Defamation league that listed numerous such accounts (I counted 16).
I am sure that a few extra searches for key words and phrases typical of hate speech and white supremacy, along with the word "Substack", would find more. You do not have to visit the websites to identify those that are beyond offensive and represent hate speech, which is unavoidably dangerous and inevitably leads to violence.
I always love when I feel like we have a mind-meld. Some thoughts:
1. Israel/Hamas -- I am.a longtime Times of Israel fan/reader and I am so glad you have found them and enjoy their coverage which I find to be both fair and intelligent, especially about the war. Not much to add there beyond an observation I read the other day on how never being seen as the victim is a key element of the Israeli mindset--the country's founding ethos is that here was a place where Jews could shed the downtrodden victim status of the European shtetls and North African ghettos and be proud and free in their own country. Which is a very long-winded way of explaining why the Israelis are so bad at PR, even the survivors of the Oct 7th massacre are reluctant to portray themselves as victims or to show how much emotional pain they are in--the ones who can talk about fighting back are the ones who get trotted out for the press, which admittedly makes for a less sympathetic story and tends to reinforce the notion of Israel as aggressor. Versus the other side, where the opposite seems to be true.
2. NYT and Biden: I had left a comment on yesterday's blog about that very article you cite, which, mind you, sits at the very top of the NYT website. There's nothing new in it. We know that some Muslim-Americans are not happy with Biden's support of Israel. We've known that for almost two months. And a handful of young staffers, "predominantly Arab or Muslim-American"--that is what, at most a dozen out of thousands of White House staffers? Again, nothing we didn't already know and not front page news. I suspect a greater percentage of young staffers are unhappy about the snack selection in the cafeteria. It sounded like the author herself was unhappy with the President and decided to work backwards from there. My biggest issue with the NYT is that we have no equivalent of Right Wing Media, and so, save for a few substacks, it can seem like everyone is anti-Biden. (And Right Wing Media is truly the Upside Down, where Jan 6th insurrectionists are "political prisoners" being held as hostages by the "corrupt Communist Biden Crime Family." (That is not an attempt at humor either, that's pretty much verbatim.)
3. The Kochs and Haley: It's been fascinating to see the Big Business wing of the GOP try and find their Trump Killer. Even more fascinating to watch is how they've completely given up on DeSantis for all the reasons that were obvious from the start (zero charisma being the main one.) The WSJ in particular has been tripping over itself to publish pro-Haley articles and op-eds.
4. Musk and Social Media: I go back and forth about Musk, whether he actually believes any of what he's saying or doing, or if he just says and does things because he knows he'll get the biggest reaction from people. Problem being, if he is doing it as some sort of performance art, he's missing that so many do take him seriously. As for Nazi Substacks, I am not surprised. People who believe in all sorts of hate and conspiracy need to talk about it and convince each other that they are the ones who aren't crazy. If you think the earth is flat, then of course you are going to want a place to discuss it with your fellow travelers. Whereas people who think the earth is round don't ever really see the need to reconsider that belief so they don't participate in "round earth" blogs...
I do think that providing James Comer or Gym Jordan with public hearings is a good MAGA disinfectant. The fact that James Comer appears to have personal smarmy business dealings that sound, from a distance, to be in the same boat as Hunter Biden's brings a pleasing amount of schadenfreude to the table.
Yesterday I attended an in-person interview of AG Sulzberger, current publisher of The NY Times. After ascertaining, by a show of hands, that virtually all 200 or so people in the room were Times readers, he quipped that he would bet each of us had at least 3 criticisms of Times coverage.
Well here’s some of mine…. The other day I was angered by an article whose headline said the economy was doing poorly and would be hurtful to Biden’s bid for reelection. The body of the article acknowledged that people were negative about the economy even though it’s doing quite well. Completely misleading headline!
Today’s outrage is again a knock on Biden for the economy, in a headline, see below, about a completely unrelated story…. It seems they are going out of their way to portray Biden negatively!
“The National Christmas Tree Fell Over. Insert Metaphor Here.
Does it symbolize President Biden’s economic policies, or the pressures of the season?”
Writing to the NYT and getting an answer is an admirable but ineffective way to influence it. Unless the letter and answer are published somewhere it remains private. Better to use social
media where the criticism and response, if any, can be seen by millions. And the response can be criticize.d. Calls and letters are easily handled by institutions. Social media is a better channel for affecting their conduct.
I also want to add that the NY Times response did not own up to the amount of coverage on Biden's age, which has been considerable. They are not focusing solely on his policies and administration.
I have copied and pasted most of the Atlantic article over at That's Another Fine Mess. When you read it, you will find that Substack has Terms of Service - that everyone here is supposed to abide by and they are supposed to enforce - which bans "hate speech." They have the power to turn off the Nazis tonight. And because the Nazis and their subscribers have all violated the Terms of Service, Substack doesn't need to repay any of them a penny. No one's "First Amendment rights" are violated when a non-governmental body tells someone their views are unwelcome and they are also unwelcome because of their views.
I have urged my readers at That's Another Fine Mess to write to Substack at support@substack.com and tell them how much we appreciate Substack and how happy we would all be if they were to use the powers they already have to rid the site of Nazis, neo-Confederates and all the other White Supremacist pondscum. (Don't use "pondscum" with them) My readers have also restacked the post, shared it at FB, sent it to friends and shared it with Substack comrades for them to pass on. You can do that too.
We can make this viral and we can convince the Silly Con Valley boys that however much they're making off the Nazis, it won't buy them enough soap to clean off the stain, and will harm them with the people they all actually want to have here (they promote our side in their publicity, not the Nazis).
Here's the post. You too can put on your hip waders and clean out the clogged drains here.
https://tcinla757.substack.com/p/substack-has-a-nazi-problem
Robert, Thank You--for doing the same things you laud us for, and more!
Without your information steadying us with its pragmatic ring of truth, your availability, and your refusal to be distracted by fluff and nonsense, where would we be right now?
I don’t watch any news on TV (other than my two favorite people on MSNBC for a total of 15 minutes a day), or ANY social media at all. If you or HCR, or the few others I trust aren't writing about something, I just don’t need to waste my time on it.
Please keep calling it like it is--and inspiring us to do something for our country....
At the Substack blog of TCinLA, there was also a post about the pro-Trump bias in the NYT and the WP. In response to that, I posted the following, which is what I submitted to Substack through the App pissedconsumer.com, which is reportedly a bona fide site for offering criticism of media and businesses - it had a page for Substack that included a link to emailing their Customer Service. This is just as relevant to Mr. Hubbell calling out the NYT and WP for what the article in The Atlantic had to say.
***********************
The Terms of Service of Substack require that hosted content must not constitute hate speech.
This is not just an issue of posts that are "offensive" or "objectionable."
White supremacy is a belief system based upon hate directed at whichever groups any given white supremacist deems as non-white. This often takes the form of explicitly anti-Semitic tropes and statements. Any content that is explicitly Nazi is inconsistent with your site's rules. It is hate speech.
Profits to Substack deriving from such hate speech are corrupt and unacceptable.
The many white-supremacist, neo-Confederate, and explicitly Nazi newsletters on Substack must be shut down immediately. Examples include Andkon’s Reich Press, White-Papers, Turning Point Stocks, The Tribalist, People's Initiative of New England, and any sites that speak about the "Jewish Question." Any site with which Richard Spencer or Patrick Casey are affiliated is unacceptable (e.g., “Geniuses, in their most consequential forms, appear predominantly among Aryans … orbited by successful Jews” absolutely is trafficking in hate speech).
Use your First Amendment right NOT to publish hate speech.
The New York Times letter did not answer David D’s mention of “false equivalency“ because it is a boilerplate letter, not one written by an individual as an answer to another individual letter. I would not be surprised if it weren’t AI generated.
I want to add my Thank You! to all the readers who took the time to write to the media. You are champions.
Just reading Today’s Edition today there are multiple stories covering a variety of subjects and it only the tip of the iceberg. We are all overwhelmed with the shire volume of the news and frankly have a difficult time distinguishing what is true and accurate and what is not. Added to this equation are the crazies who are on social platforms with a voice. The challenge is to shift through all of this and come out of it without surrendering to the noise. Watching the Roslyn Carter funeral and seeing Jimmy Carter and hearing Amy Carter read a letter sent when Jimmy Carter was overseas reminded me of the goodness of people and there are a lot of Carter’s out there and along with us together we all will do the right things to protect our democracy. It will take time and lots of hard work but we will get it done and we need to continue keeping the faith.
I had tried to find a way to contact CNN about their ridiculous story re Biden’s decision not to go to the Climate Conference, and I had a hard time finding a way to give them feedback. An email address I found where one could allegedly send feedback actually wasn’t accurate, and the long note I wrote bounced back to me. I was so frustrated!
I tried again to noodle around on Google and find an avenue to reach them and finally found a comment form. So I filled that out and wrong a detailed note there. I have no idea whether anyone will actually read it, but it felt good to write it,nevertheless.
I think that we can do similar work to keep Substack honest as we do with MSM and journalists. How can we search Substack for the offending content, and report it to the platform’s management? If they won’t moderate their platform we can give them a little help.
Here is the link for Substack’s content guidelines:
https://substack.com/content
On that content page, this is their paragraph on hate:
"Hate
Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition."
And here is what they say about reporting this and other similarly offending content. It includes an email address for alerting them.
" If you encounter content that may be in breach of these guidelines or have any questions about them, you can email us at tos@substackinc.com."
Thank you Robert for your daily efforts. Thank you to everyone who reads this newsletter and even more thanks to all of you that take action.
Re: polls. A friend received a call from a pollster whose first question was "what level of education do you have?" When friend answered college graduate, pollster immediately hung up.
I Googled the following: <Substack accounts that include hate speech and white supremacy>, and quickly found an article from the Anti-Defamation league that listed numerous such accounts (I counted 16).
This is the link for that article: https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/antisemitism-false-information-and-hate-speech-find-home-substack-0
I am sure that a few extra searches for key words and phrases typical of hate speech and white supremacy, along with the word "Substack", would find more. You do not have to visit the websites to identify those that are beyond offensive and represent hate speech, which is unavoidably dangerous and inevitably leads to violence.
I always love when I feel like we have a mind-meld. Some thoughts:
1. Israel/Hamas -- I am.a longtime Times of Israel fan/reader and I am so glad you have found them and enjoy their coverage which I find to be both fair and intelligent, especially about the war. Not much to add there beyond an observation I read the other day on how never being seen as the victim is a key element of the Israeli mindset--the country's founding ethos is that here was a place where Jews could shed the downtrodden victim status of the European shtetls and North African ghettos and be proud and free in their own country. Which is a very long-winded way of explaining why the Israelis are so bad at PR, even the survivors of the Oct 7th massacre are reluctant to portray themselves as victims or to show how much emotional pain they are in--the ones who can talk about fighting back are the ones who get trotted out for the press, which admittedly makes for a less sympathetic story and tends to reinforce the notion of Israel as aggressor. Versus the other side, where the opposite seems to be true.
2. NYT and Biden: I had left a comment on yesterday's blog about that very article you cite, which, mind you, sits at the very top of the NYT website. There's nothing new in it. We know that some Muslim-Americans are not happy with Biden's support of Israel. We've known that for almost two months. And a handful of young staffers, "predominantly Arab or Muslim-American"--that is what, at most a dozen out of thousands of White House staffers? Again, nothing we didn't already know and not front page news. I suspect a greater percentage of young staffers are unhappy about the snack selection in the cafeteria. It sounded like the author herself was unhappy with the President and decided to work backwards from there. My biggest issue with the NYT is that we have no equivalent of Right Wing Media, and so, save for a few substacks, it can seem like everyone is anti-Biden. (And Right Wing Media is truly the Upside Down, where Jan 6th insurrectionists are "political prisoners" being held as hostages by the "corrupt Communist Biden Crime Family." (That is not an attempt at humor either, that's pretty much verbatim.)
3. The Kochs and Haley: It's been fascinating to see the Big Business wing of the GOP try and find their Trump Killer. Even more fascinating to watch is how they've completely given up on DeSantis for all the reasons that were obvious from the start (zero charisma being the main one.) The WSJ in particular has been tripping over itself to publish pro-Haley articles and op-eds.
4. Musk and Social Media: I go back and forth about Musk, whether he actually believes any of what he's saying or doing, or if he just says and does things because he knows he'll get the biggest reaction from people. Problem being, if he is doing it as some sort of performance art, he's missing that so many do take him seriously. As for Nazi Substacks, I am not surprised. People who believe in all sorts of hate and conspiracy need to talk about it and convince each other that they are the ones who aren't crazy. If you think the earth is flat, then of course you are going to want a place to discuss it with your fellow travelers. Whereas people who think the earth is round don't ever really see the need to reconsider that belief so they don't participate in "round earth" blogs...
I do think that providing James Comer or Gym Jordan with public hearings is a good MAGA disinfectant. The fact that James Comer appears to have personal smarmy business dealings that sound, from a distance, to be in the same boat as Hunter Biden's brings a pleasing amount of schadenfreude to the table.
Yesterday I attended an in-person interview of AG Sulzberger, current publisher of The NY Times. After ascertaining, by a show of hands, that virtually all 200 or so people in the room were Times readers, he quipped that he would bet each of us had at least 3 criticisms of Times coverage.
Well here’s some of mine…. The other day I was angered by an article whose headline said the economy was doing poorly and would be hurtful to Biden’s bid for reelection. The body of the article acknowledged that people were negative about the economy even though it’s doing quite well. Completely misleading headline!
Today’s outrage is again a knock on Biden for the economy, in a headline, see below, about a completely unrelated story…. It seems they are going out of their way to portray Biden negatively!
“The National Christmas Tree Fell Over. Insert Metaphor Here.
Does it symbolize President Biden’s economic policies, or the pressures of the season?”
Writing to the NYT and getting an answer is an admirable but ineffective way to influence it. Unless the letter and answer are published somewhere it remains private. Better to use social
media where the criticism and response, if any, can be seen by millions. And the response can be criticize.d. Calls and letters are easily handled by institutions. Social media is a better channel for affecting their conduct.
I also want to add that the NY Times response did not own up to the amount of coverage on Biden's age, which has been considerable. They are not focusing solely on his policies and administration.