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Substack promoted a Nazi blog again (www.usermag.co)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by InfiniteHench@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Substack sent a push alert encouraging users to subscribe to a Nazi newsletter that claimed Jewish people are a sickness and that we must eradicate minorities to build a “White homeland.”

This has been a problem for years: Substack has a Nazi problem - The Atlantic

Substack won’t commit to removing Nazi content - TechCrunch

I don’t think this can be ignored anymore. If you’re on Substack, please consider one of its many fine alternatives. Wired wrote about a few last year.

Plus, it’s quite easy to move a newsletter these days.

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[-] glorkon@lemmy.world 64 points 4 days ago

As a German it's completely mind boggling to me that some societies tolerate an ideology that is responsible for plunging the world into its biggest humane catastrophe (so far), for the sake of free speech. Nazi ideology wants to kill free speech. If you truly want to protect free speech, you have to at least limit it to all the things that do not threaten it.

[-] Maroon@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Note that the largest Nazi groups today are in the "allied" nations that "won" WW2.

I read a piece (can't find the source now, sorry) that blamed this squarely on the lack of education and remorse given to the colonial backdrop in which WW2 was fought.

Most parts of the world view WW2 as very much a European war that was imposed on unwilling global participants. The axis powers lost and Germany has since tried its best to reinvent itself while acknowledging its chequered past (check out: Vergangenheitsbewältigung), but the allied powers failed to recognise their colonial atrocities. For example, British history textbooks will loosely allude to the British empire saying that they were once a dominating global entity, but will make absolutely no mention of the numerous massacres and genocides for which they were responsible.

When wars are framed as competitions rather than tragedies, you will see the emergence of false victors instead of acknowledging lost generations. This directly results in a poor public understanding of how bad ideas can fester and hollow out any society.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Over the decades since WW2, the popular culture of the allied countries has typically portrayed Nazis as caricatured crazy monsters. They are treated as strange, other, and non-human. This seems to have thoroughly undermined people's ability to recognize Nazism as a destructive force that lurks in people, whether they're German or American or any other nationality. Any society has the potential to fall into this. The unreflective complacency of the WW2 victors after defeating Nazis once has led to a complete lack of awareness that it's an ongoing job to keep your society from falling prey to fascists.

For a while the collective memory of those who lived through the war protected us, but when that generation died off the lessons were forgotten. Some fell into fascism without realizing it because they assumed they were by nature better than Nazis, while others failed to notice the threat until dangerously late.

[-] prole 10 points 4 days ago

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you successfully gut public education.

[-] goatmeal@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago

what on earth are you talking about?? holocaust instruction is not "gutted," it increases year over year. the people you imagine are doing this gutting of public education are consistently some of the most vicious advocates for increasing holocaust instruction.

[-] prole 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I'm talking just WW2 history in general, but OK.

I can just speak to US public schools, but ALL education has suffered from the gutting of our public education here, and that includes "holocaust instruction."

[-] XTL@sopuli.xyz 3 points 3 days ago

Looking at how many countries have started to have and even elect literal nazi parties, the education has been failing very widely and for a very long time (since WW2).

[-] simsalabim@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

And Nazis still get free public promotion via ARD Sommertalk 😔

[-] BenLeMan@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Hey, at least the music was good.

[-] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Germans saying this while their government is one of the biggest advocates for the ongoing genocide in Gaza will never not look stupid.

[-] goatmeal@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

if we are being completely honest with ourselves, most people believe in free speech only in moderation. nazism is most certainly not the only ideology that sharply reduces free speech.

[-] Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 130 points 4 days ago

I cringe everytime someone's like "subscribe to my Substack". No, fuck off with your substack, everyone knows they're nazi supporters, you're complicit.

[-] Whostosay@sh.itjust.works 57 points 4 days ago

No such thing as a Nazi supporter, my friend. That's just a Nazi.

[-] RagingSnarkasm@lemmy.world 100 points 4 days ago

"I'm not a Nazi, but twenty bucks is twenty bucks."

--Substack, probably

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 23 points 4 days ago

"I'm also not not a Nazi"- Substack founders, definitely

[-] MHLoppy@fedia.io 47 points 4 days ago

There is a deep irony covering this by writing about it.. on Substack

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago

Wtf even is substack anyways?

[-] _thisdot@infosec.pub 15 points 3 days ago

Kinda like Medium or WordPress (the .com variant). Gives you your own subdomain and lets you blog. Their policy is that they absolutely will not editorialise anything. It's used by a lot of reputable good bloggers too

[-] InfiniteHench@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Unfortunately popular newsletter service that also puts your issues online to look like a blog. Has a lot of startup capital behind it so they've been paying some of their largest writers on top of subscriber revenue.

Big "marketplace of ideas" idiots who have allowed a lot of white supremacist and - as this and other situations exemplify - straight up Nazi content.

[-] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 33 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Centrists: "Oh so everyone you disagree with is a nazi?"

[-] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

Some of them, most are just assholes

[-] Paradox@lemdro.id 27 points 4 days ago

Substack just annoying as can be anyway, with the constant spammy pop-ups about subscribed to my newsletter and whatever the hell else. Absolutely atrocious blogging platform

[-] tisktisk@piefed.social 3 points 4 days ago

Can't criticize unless an alternative is provided tho, can you?

[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 62 points 4 days ago

You absolutely can and should regardless.

[-] tisktisk@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago

I almost fully agree Idk about 'should' just out of paranoia that I can imagine a case where criticizing without sufficient contrast or a consistent-enough background of otherness, could potentially have unintended consequences or surprisingly negative overall moral impacts Or maybe just paranoid idek

[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Lol, I can absolutely call a website (or argument) awful or absolutely moronic without providing an alternative. Especially when we're talking about Nazi supporters (which substack objectively is and has been for years).

As a wise man once said, I don't need to be a pilot to know a helicopter doesn't belong in a tree.

[-] Paradox@lemdro.id 25 points 4 days ago

Ghost, tumblr, WordPress, any of the self hosted SSGs out there.

[-] Guidy@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

Fucking watch me.

Nazis bad. <- note the period that makes that a full sentence.

Don’t use substack. Or Twitter.

[-] prole 6 points 4 days ago

Maybe I'm mistaken, but couldn't you just use like... Fucking SquareSpace or some shit, and just make a blog on your own site?

[-] null@lemmy.nullspace.lol 4 points 4 days ago

Lol what? Are you saying Substack is the only blogging platform that exists?

[-] iii@mander.xyz 6 points 4 days ago

Jekyll

[-] datavoid@lemmy.ml 11 points 4 days ago

I deleted substack back when I randomly got porn in a push notification. You'd think they would address this - I'm no expert, but this doesn't seem good for them.

[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Oh no, how did you ever recover from that?

[-] datavoid@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago

I'm still having nightmares :(

[-] obbeel@mander.xyz 13 points 4 days ago

I see a pattern here...

[-] heliophane@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago

It's a shame there are some people I like on there. I can live perfectly fine without ettingermentum though.

[-] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 days ago

if i had a nickel for every time substack promoted a nazi blog.......

... i'd have a shitload of nickels.

[-] xinit@lemmy.coffee 5 points 3 days ago

Enough to put them all in the toe of a sock and swing it at some Nazis.

[-] individual@toast.ooo 7 points 4 days ago

what are the fine alternatives?

[-] lime@feddit.nu 10 points 4 days ago

a blog

[-] InfiniteHench@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I ended the post with a link to Wired about alternatives

[-] forrcaho@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Beehiiv is an option.

[-] PattyMcB@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

Hey look at that... actual bad socialists. (As if they're actual socialists)

[-] burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

dip dip dip just got a phone notif, Top Ten Things That Didn't Happen But If They Did Happen It Was Good

this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
542 points (100.0% liked)

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