A lot of people have lately been complaining that Substack has only narrow restrictions on the content it allows. Some aren’t just complaining but are leaving the platform. The issue is “racist or bigoted speech”, and in some cases, “explicitly Nazi” material.

It wouldn’t bother me if Substack had somewhat broader restrictions on content, but it’s a dangerous path to go down, and I’m sure they know it. Deciding whether something violates content restrictions is often tricky, and sites with lots of user-generated content rely on software and people under time pressure to decide. They generate a lot of false positives. On pre-Musk Twitter, I was suspended for making a joke about the health hazards of Krispy Kreme, for recommending a sharp blade to separate uncut book pages, and for objecting to an endorsement of mass murder. The innocent were punished more severely than the guilty, since reinstatement required admitting to a violation of the rules.
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