Substack faces user revolt over anti-censorship stance on neo-Nazis

Do laws against "doxxing" even exist at all, or is that something you made up? Journalists "doxx" people they don't like all the time, apparently without consequence.

Laws against threats of violence are extremely controversial because the left constantly tries to redefine the term violence to encompass any views they don't like. In the USA the exact definition of "imminent" in respect to violence speech has consumed considerable attention from the courts.

Child porn is the least controversial, but even there, you will find controversy. Apple rolled back their plan to scan everyone's iPhones for child porn due to how controversial it is, right? And there is significant debate about what the actual legal age of minority is, because it varies around the world, and whether cartoons count or not.

False advertising: this is the least controversial form of speech control for libertarians because they want informed markets, but even here, it's controversial because governments suck at enforcing such laws neutrally. Consider all the news agencies that advertise themselves as neutral whilst being obviously biased.

Planning a crime: the border between people making idle threats and actually being legally liable is constantly being thrashed out by the courts even today, and usually convicting someone of this requires more than just speech. You have to actually take action towards carrying out the crime, not just saying you will.

In short, none of your examples are free of controversy. So the allegation you're insinuating there - that everyone who disagrees with you on this is a secret Nazi - does not work.

> No one is restricting the speech of the nazis on Substack.

In fact they are, because Substack does ban genuinely Nazi accounts. See the Andikon Reich example. This doesn't bother anyone because it's a very clear and precise match. The fuss is the usual problem where the left label anyone to their right banned under whatever rules are the most emotive, even when they don't apply at all.

Sorry, I was just too vague with my first question. A newsletter can be used for broadcasting political views. But it doesn't have to be used for broadcasting all political views, and can be used to broadcast views that aren't directly related to politics. A newsletter can broadcast only views the owners of the service tolerate (not necessarily want) on the site. It's not reasonable to assume that Substack is a place for all political views, and Substack is fully in the right to ban certain ones without banning others. I bring this up due to my personal speculation: Substack decided not to remove articles openly advocating Nazi beliefs, but had Substack gone the other way then a loud subset of anti-censorship believers would paint the opposite decision - to remove such articles - as "giving in to the mob" (or less likely, giving in to nonexistent coercion from a government) rather than as an equally voluntary, valid, and democracy-compatible decision.

> Spam isn't newsletters, so that seems like a non sequitur.

You're right. Spam was a terrible example. A better example would've been articles advocating something extreme such as complete destruction of Ukraine. Or a topic on a different axis, such as advocacy of sexual gratification (which Substack does ban).

> Newsletters are meant to go to people who signed up for them.

The Substack moderation controversy is not about who gets newsletters. It's about authors on Substack who don't want to associate with certain beliefs posted by other authors. (In this context, spam was relevant if only tangentially; I wouldn't want to write a newsletter using a platform too notorious for user-generated spam newsletters. Nonetheless, I was wrong to use spam as an example.)

> In less civilized societies than the USA the government thinks it's smarter than the populace, and should control their information. History shows us that governments which smash up the printing presses were rarely smart.

Agreed. What bothers me about the Substack controversy is that people are emphasizing the government in the conversation even though the critics of Substack's moderation policy aren't trying to make the government do anything and aren't forcing Substack's hand. Just because the complainers are forceful in their language doesn't mean they are coercing Substack into agreeing with them (unless someone's been Machiavellian enough to doxx Substack employees or threaten the employees' safety; even then, guilt generally wouldn't apply to the entire mob). An online mob is part of the populace just as people who oppose the mob are. Non-governmental requests to moderate in a certain way are equally democratic as non-governmental requests not to moderate in that way as long as Substack gets to make the final decisions. Boycotting is not coercion and is democratic. Advocacy of boycotting are not coercion and are democratic. Criticism of boycotting is not coercion and is democratic. Doxxing is coercion. Threats to personal safety are coercion. The mob did not control Substack's decision here. This would be true even if Substack had decided to agree with the mob's moderation policies.

They actually did. Look at my other post on this thread that examines the Atlantic's cited examples. The only one that is actually clearly Nazi is suspended for ToS violations. The others are all nothing to do with Nazis, but it's a Tuesday so the left is claiming otherwise to try and censor their opponents.

> It's about authors on Substack who don't want to associate with certain beliefs posted by other authors.

And if they succeeded then it'd be "we don't want to be on the same internet as those other authors" and so on. Those people will never stop trying to shut down people who disagree with them and will certainly lie in order to get that outcome. Never trust censors!

> the critics of Substack's moderation policy aren't trying to make the government do anything

Remember that many governments outside of America ban websites for vague reasons like "hate speech". It's not just about the USA.

> Boycotting is not coercion and is democratic

They didn't want to do a boycott, they wanted their opponents to be denied the right to speech. They might end up trying a boycott now but it's not clear what it means to boycott a service like Substack, because they weren't receiving the material they were objecting to in the first place.