Hello all,
If you’ve been following the news & discourse surrounding Substack as a platform recently, you might have heard the unfortunate news regarding their unwillingness to moderate what can only be described as hate speech. I really try to live my values and I can’t in good conscience support a platform that enables this evil behavior.
This obviously is deeply problematic, but unfortunately I have built a following here over more than a year, and moving that following to another place is not trivial. Creating is my livelihood and so I hope you can understand that this will take some time and it will hurt.
For the time being, if you are a paid subscriber I have put billing on pause, and I would love to hear from you regarding how I can make this transition easier for you. For yearly subscribers, I have submitted a request for you to all receive a pro-rated refund though Substack says this takes about a week and it might take a little bit longer given the holidays; if you’d like to support over on Patreon instead, that would be appreciated as well, and sorry for the headache.
Starting Monday, I’ll be posting all articles on my Patreon page — free articles are still going to be free to read, and you can follow to get notified when I post a new article.
Thanks,
Reece
With respect you’re on the wrong side on this one.
The last decade plus has made it obvious that attempts to “deplatform” do not make the internet more civil or more kind. (Unless you’d like to make the case that the world is more politically moderate than it was in 2015 or so.
The last decade plus has also made it obvious that every political ideology has an expanding definition of what should be banned that has no end.
Liberalism and pluralism REQUIRE a willingness to engage and discuss even when you think the other side is unreasonable.
The alternative of forcibly silencing your opponents is both illiberal and likely to silence you. (Unless you think that you’re more aggressive and more willing to use unreasonable force than your opponents)
It had to be a hard choice given the fact you earn part of your living on this platform. But kudos to you for making that call. It’s shitty when a companies evil mask is revealed and you once again have to go someplace new. But if people don’t walk away and reject platforms that allow hate speech (because ‘freedom’ ) and other extremist behaviour then it gives them license to remain shitty, horrible, anti-social companies.
If there is an upside to the fall of Twitter and Substack it’s that a lot of writers, video creators, etc are realizing they need to gain more independence and control over their work and where it’s available. Sure some platforms can give you a big audience quickly, but with a lot of trade offs and uncertainty. Hopefully more independent options start to emerge because right now the choices are very limited.