Substack? Substandard, More Like!

Rampant misogyny is being allowed to flourish on this platform. We all need to stand up and be counted.

I joined Substack at the end of May last year. Soon after, it became readily apparent that, while there were thousands of lovely, well-intentioned, kind individuals on the platform, each one seeking to share their writing and curate a community of like-minded souls, something sinister was bubbling away under the surface of appreciating small things, analogue dreams and whimsy.

It didn’t take a lot of peeling back to find Substack’s grubby underbelly of hatred. Men in suits with sensible haircuts (a bit like Matt Goodwin - or a lot like Matt Goodwin) repackaged long-stale Nazi ideologies that target women, immigrants, and British nationals while spreading fear that the poor, maligned white man’s very existence is under threat. Whipping his followers into a frothy-mouthed frenzy under the guise of ‘legitimate concerns’, you didn’t have to look far into the comments on each of the walking haircut’s articles to see people actively inciting violence against non-white men, women, and children.

Lord only knows how long I spent flagging comments, articles, and accounts where individuals were not just spreading racial hatred, but actively encouraging insurrections against any non-white, non-Christian individuals or collectives. Substack thanked me for flagging the content, assured me they would look into it and then… nothing.

This lack of transparency is enormously troubling, especially when viewed through the lens of the amount of rampant misogyny unleashed, by men, against women and LGBTQ+ writers on this platform.

I came across, and restacked a quote yesterday from this open letter written by a coalition of women, feminist, and LGBTQ+ writers outlining the extent of the abuse they’ve received on Substack in recent weeks. If you haven’t already, please take five minutes to read their words, and then as long as you need to digest them.

Then, we can move onto Substack’s content guidelines:

“We want Substack to be a safe place for discussion and expression” they state. Then, “At the same time, we believe that critique and discussion of controversial issues are part of robust discourse, so we work to find a reasonable balance between these two priorities.” Finally, “In all cases, Substack does not allow credible threats of physical harm.”

“Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition.”

‘Credible’, in the mind of those that wrote these guidelines is doing rather a lot of heavy lifting, I suspect.

Alongside the threats of rape, murder, and death, women on this platform are logging on to find deep fake porn content containing their faces. I cannot even begin to fathom how fucking humiliating, dehumanising, and downright traumatising that must be. And the reason I cannot begin to imagine it is that it’s not a threat I have to countenance as a white dude.

The user, Marie Rose🌹 linked this post to Substack, Substack Team and two of the platform’s tech bro founders. Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie have previously been extremely vocal about their intention to keep censorship to a minimum on this platform. All while profiting handsomely off monetised publications espousing Nazi ideology and anti-vaxx individuals.

McKenzie, in a December 2023 Substack note, gallantly said that he and Chris “don’t like Nazis either” and that he wished that "no-one else held those views.” However, their way of tackling the issue wasn’t by de-platforming or demonetising these accounts but by allowing them to remain with the assumption that opening them up to discourse is the best way of stripping such notions of their power.

Oh, and, of course, pocketing roughly 10% of each financial subscription to these users themselves, too.

Way to fight the man, bro.

You can just imagine Chris and Hamish, in their Greenwich Village penthouse, playing a game of pool with the top three buttons of their shirts undone, chino shorts down to their knees and Birkenstocks airing their feet. A clink of their bottled beer, probably called something like Dude Bro High 5 Lite and produced by Douche Nuts craft brewery, letting out a long old chortle as they check their crypto investments and toasting the world of disrupting and decentralising media.

It’s plainly obvious now, if it wasn’t before their nonsensical recent partnership with Polymarket (because, journalism is better when backed by live markets - WTAF does that even mean?), that Substack is just another tech-capitalist initiative that’s as much about building community as me driving a pneumatic drill into the face of passers-by as I walk along my local high street. It’s the media Brewdog, with a similar moral code, it seems.

This insidious pandemic of creating deepfakes is horrific. And the behaviour of tech bros like Chris and Hamish - and dear old Elon with his Grot bot - enables and excuses this shit, allowing perpetrators to get off without consequence. Sure, maybe the odd account here and there gets banned, but the perps can simply create a new account and carry on as before. But, Chris and Hamish are so pro free speech that the odd threat here and there doesn’t really matter.

I’ve seen suggestions on how individuals can deal with this shit. Mass blockings of users; won’t work as noted above. Users hiding their faces to stop them being used in deepfakes; that’s all very “stop wearing short skirts and you won’t get raped.” Placing the burden of responsibility on the victim rather than the perpetrator to police their behaviours.

Just think for a moment about how fucked up that is, that we, as a society, encourage those most at risk to moderate what they do rather than those liable to commit the offences.

And, as always, it’s come down to women, and those in the feminist and LGBTQ+ community to call this fucking horrific behaviour out. To flag it to Substack and Substack Team.

I know there are guys out there who want Substack to flourish, to be genuinely safe for all users. So, it is down to us not to stand idly by but to stand up and be counted. It shouldn’t take us to have to step outside of our own lived experience as a man to consider ‘what if that was my mum/sister/girlfriend/daughter being targeted.’ Deeply problematic, toxic, and misogynist behaviour is obvious. We can all see it.

If - no, when - we stand idly by, remain silent, we are complicit in enabling these fucks to wilfully and anonymously abuse women from behind a computer screen. If we don’t see an online threat as being credible, then we are complicit in enabling these fucks when they move out from behind a computer screen and act in public. When they follow women too closely on the street, stare at them on the tube, think nothing of groping them in a crowded bar or club.

So, while I’ve been wondering whether or not Substack is really for me (I don’t think it is), and while I recognise the loss of my voice on this platform wouldn’t disturb Chris or Hamish as they bro hug each other in self-congratulation at earning another $1m, I don’t think I want to let the assholes win.

I write this standing shoulder-to-shoulder with lettersfromafeminist, Marie Rose🌹 , Write sober, edit sober🤎📖 , ❤︎ Sara Krane ❤︎ , Luciana Cole they/them , emma 🐞⋆˚꩜ , ⋆˚࿔🅐🅛🅛🅨𝜗𝜚˚⋆✮ - and any other user who has been threatened or targeted with hate speech on this platform.

Threats are threats. Hate speech is hate speech. Listen to victims, believe victims, do not question, moralise, or minimise their experiences. Call this shit out for what it is and men, let’s all be much, much better.