I need to vent, but feel free to skip this... <rant>

A Strange Christmas

I host my french-speaking blog & newsletter on Substack, and I am very much happy with it.

The best thing about substack is that it frees me from social media, I can communicate with my audience directly without an algorithm-in-the-middle, which is like a man-in-the-middle but much worse.

On December 25th, it was Christmas, unsurprisingly.

The weird part was when I opened my Substack app, everyone in my feed was mad about nazis.

• More than 200 publications join Substackers Against Nazis
• Substackers against nazis
• Substack has a Nazi problem
• Substack has a nazi opportunity

Without any context, my first reaction was something like: "What do you mean by nazi here ? Was someone mean to you and you didn't like that because you are easily offended or something ?"

But no, as it turns out, they were talking about white nationalist, antisemites, Charlottesville people.

So you know, actual nazis.

And in case I offend those people by calling them names, it's very much intentionally so.

Substack's reaction

The infuriating part is that Substack owners reacted by self-promoting as big-brain open-minded free-speech-extremists fascists-enablers.

It's a given that there are fascists on the internet. Quoting The Popehart Report :

Substack has Nazis, because of course it does. Substack is on the internet, Nazis are on the internet, and if Substack doesn’t want Nazis it has to take affirmative steps to get rid of them. Flies don’t stop coming into the house because you want them to; they stop because you get off the couch and close the screen door. Any social media or blogging platform faces this.

The fundmanental issue with free-speech-extremists is that they are lying.

Every platform on the internet ever needs to make choices about how it want its platform looks like. Not making choices is also a choice, the worst of them all. But everyone makes choices, to prohibit spam, or doxedin, or harassment, whatever.

So of course Substack makes choices, they just decided to stay neutral on fascism.

My point is not that any of these policies is objectionable. But, like the old joke goes, we’ve established what Substack is, now we’re just haggling over the price. Substack is engaging in transparent puffery when it brands itself as permitting offensive speech because the best way to handle offensive speech is to put it all out there to discuss. It’s simply not true. Substack has made a series of value judgments about which speech to permit and which speech not to permit. Substack would like you to believe that making judgments about content “for the sole purpose of sexual gratification,” or content promoting anorexia, is different than making judgment about Nazi content. In fact, that’s not a neutral, value-free choice. It’s a valued judgment by a platform that brands itself as not making valued judgments. Substack has decided that Nazis are okay and porn and doxxing isn’t. The fact that Substack is engaging in a common form of free-speech puffery offered by platforms doesn’t make it true.

I hope Substack will reconsider, may be they already have. But since this discussion is happening again and again with internet platforms, let's go to the bottom of it.

Democracy doesn't mean one minute for the Jews and onne minute for Hitler

It should be well known at that point that providing lots of free speech to fascists so they are free to harass others doesn't, in fact, improve freedom.

That should be well known especially in the US who was the leader of the anti-fascist camp in the New Deal era.

Let's remind us briefly why.

This was well explained by Karl Popper with its tolerance paradox

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them

What does Karl Poppe mean by that ?

You know the old adage

Don’t play chess with a pigeon. It’ll just knock over the pieces, poop all over the board and then strut around like it won the game.

Same here

Don't play democracy with fascists. They will use all the protection you offer them, poop all over the boar, then strut around like they won the game. Except they have actually won the game because they now have more power, and they very much intend to destroy the game and you with it.

Democracy is a social contract and fascists don't want to be part of it.

But...

Let see some common counter arguments

"But the US founding fathers said bla bla bla"
They lived in the 18th century and fascism is a 20th century pheonem. You wouldn't ask a physicist of the 18th century for guidance about Einstein's relativity theory. Same here.

"You know what we should with nazis ? We should debate them in the marketplace of ideas."
I don't really know where that place is. I would rather defeat them first on planet Earth.

"But it's a slippery slope, if we punch a nazi like Richard Spencer in the face, what's next ?"
Hopefully punching more nazis in the face ? Wouldn't it be weird to punch only one ?

"But it costs time and efforts and money to do so"
True.

TLDR

Fascism is shits for brains, and rejecting fascists is the easiest ethical test ever.

I don't trust organizations who choose to stay neutral.