Platformer’s Reporting On Substack’s Supposed “Nazi Problem” Is Shoddy And Misleading

Another example of an outlet stoking a moral panic rather than reporting on it with full honesty and transparency

As some of you know, there’s presently a debate raging about the fact that Substack will not automatically ban Nazis who pop up on this platform. That’s because Substack’s content guidelines are written in an intentionally liberal way, to allow most speech. One of the only red lines is direct, credible incitement of violence — racism alone, including of the Nazi variety, doesn’t qualify. (See disclosure about my own connections to Substack in the footnote.¹)

These content guidelines aren’t new, but the present controversy has led to an open letter republished on many individual Substacks, calling on Substack to crack down on Nazis, a counter–open letter calling on them to maintain their laissez-faire approach to moderation, and a bunch of folks leaving or threatening to leave the platform.

The whole thing was sparked by a November article in The Atlantic by Jonathan M. Katz headlined “Substack Has a Nazi Problem,” and by Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie’s response post, in which he confirmed that no, Substack would not be banning or demonetizing Nazi content that didn’t cross the aforementioned red line. In my view, this whole thing is little more than a moral panic. Moreover, Katz cut certain corners to obscure the fact that to the extent there are Nazis on Substack at all, it appears they have almost no following or influence, and make almost no money. In one case, for example, Katz falsely claimed that a white nationalist was making a comfortable living writing on Substack, but even the most cursory bit of research would have revealed that that is completely false.

I’ll have more about all of this in a very long and comprehensive take on this controversy that’s almost ready to go up, but along the way I stumbled onto a shorter media criticism story I’d like to publish first. It’s about Platformer, a technology outlet hosted by Substack that is quite successful, listed as having more than 172,000 subscribers (that’s free and paid combined).

Platformer’s founder is Casey Newton, who is one of the most highly regarded tech reporters and commentators out there. Newton also co-hosts Hard Fork, a New York Times podcast, with Kevin Roose. I don’t consume nearly enough tech coverage given how important that subject is, but I really liked the two appearances of Newton’s I’ve heard on one of my new favorite podcasts, PJ Vogt’s Search Engine — one about Elon Musk’s descent into too-online madness and the other about the fascinating question of who should be in charge of AI.

But whatever his bona fides are as a nationally recognized tech reporter and highly successful Substacker, I think Newton has badly screwed up his coverage of the Substack Nazis story, and that he’s made the mistakes a lot of journalists have made when they aren’t careful enough to separate reporting from activism. He’s done his readers a disservice by obscuring key information from them that runs contrary to the idea that Substack has much of a Nazi problem. 

Newton has written two free pieces about Katz’s article and the fallout. The first, which went up January 4, was headlined “Why Substack is at a crossroads.” In that piece, he explained that Platformer might be leaving Substack because of the Nazis (which he had first mentioned in a paywalled post), noted that dozens of his subscribers had unsubscribed because of the controversy, and lauded them for doing so: “I’m proud of the Platformer readership for standing up for their principles in this way.” (Platformer bolds its own name as part of its house style, so emphasis theirs throughout.) 

He further explained that Platformer had done a bit of its own reporting on this matter and was seeking to force Substack’s hand:

Over the past few days, the Platformer team analyzed dozens of Substacks for pro-Nazi content. Earlier this week, I met with Substack to press my case that they should remove content that praises Nazis from the network. Late today, we submitted a list of accounts that we believe to be in violation of the company’s existing policies against incitement to violence. I am scheduled to meet with the company again tomorrow.

Newton published a follow-up article four days later headlined “Substack says it will remove Nazi publications from the platform.”

Here’s how the top of that article reads:

Substack is removing some publications that express support for Nazis, the company said today. The company said this did not represent a reversal of its previous stance, but rather the result of reconsidering how it interprets its existing policies.

As part of the move, the company is also terminating the accounts of several publications that endorse Nazi ideology and that Platformer flagged to the company for review last week.

The company will not change the text of its content policy, it says, and its new policy interpretation will not include proactively removing content related to neo-Nazis and far-right extremism. But Substack will continue to remove any material that includes “credible threats of physical harm,” it said.

In a statement, Substack’s co-founders told Platformer: [I can’t double-indent on Substack so I’m italicizing Newton’s excerpt of the statement]

If and when we become aware of other content that violates our guidelines, we will take appropriate action. 

Relatedly, we’ve heard your feedback about Substack’s content moderation approach, and we understand your concerns and those of some other writers on the platform. We sincerely regret how this controversy has affected writers on Substack. 

We appreciate the input from everyone. Writers are the backbone of Substack and we take this feedback very seriously. We are actively working on more reporting tools that can be used to flag content that potentially violates our guidelines, and we will continue working on tools for user moderation so Substack users can set and refine the terms of their own experience on the platform. 

Substack’s statement comes after weeks of controversy related to the company’s mostly laissez-faire approach to content moderation. 

In November, Jonathan M. Katz published an article in The Atlantic titled “Substack Has a Nazi Problem.” In it, he reported that he had identified at least 16 newsletters that depicted overt Nazi symbols, and dozens more devoted to far-right extremism.

A bit later, Newton emphasized, again, the efforts Platformer had taken to search for potentially violating content on Substack:

In recent weeks, Platformer has worked with other journalists and extremism researchers in an effort to understand the scope of far-right content on the platform. We’ve now reviewed dozens of active, monetized publications that advance violent ideologies, including anti-Semitism and the great replacement theory.

Substack has argued that extremist publications represent only a small fraction of newsletters on the platform, and as far as we can tell this is true. At the same time, the site’s recommendations and social networking infrastructure is designed to enable individual publications to grow quickly. And the company’s outspoken embrace of fringe viewpoints all but ensures that the number of extremist publications on the platform will grow.

All of this gives the reader the sense that while the percentage of extremist content on Substack is low, there’s still a pretty significant problem here, given Newton’s mention of the 16 explicitly neo-Nazi publications Katz reported having found in The Atlantic and the “dozens” of extremist ones he and his team discovered.

But it turns out that Newton left out some valuable information from the statement Substack sent him, which I acquired a copy of. Here it is in full, with the parts Newton included bolded:

Hi Casey, 

Thank you for the list of publications you sent in for review on Thursday evening. 

We have completed an investigation and found that five out of the six publications you reported do indeed violate our existing content guidelines, which prohibit incitements to violence based on protected classes. We have removed those publications from Substack. 

None of these publications had paid subscriptions enabled, and they account for about 100 active readers in total. 

If and when we become aware of other content that violates our guidelines, we will take appropriate action. 

Relatedly, we’ve heard your feedback about Substack’s content moderation approach, and we understand your concerns and those of some other writers on the platform. We sincerely regret how this controversy has affected writers on Substack. 

We appreciate the input from everyone. Writers are the backbone of Substack and we take this feedback very seriously. We are actively working on more reporting tools that can be used to flag content that potentially violates our guidelines, and we will continue working on tools for user moderation so Substack users can set and refine the terms of their own experience on the platform. 

Sincerely,
[Substack co-founders] Chris [Best], Hamish [McKenzie], and Jairaj [Sethi]

So readers of Platformer were denied a couple of key pieces of information: first, Platformer, after what Newton described as a fairly comprehensive search involving the evaluation of dozens of Substack newsletters, could find only six publications it deemed worthy of reporting to Substack, and second, Substack was not making a dime from those publications. Both these facts run counter to the idea that Substack has a serious Nazi problem.

Now, the question of whether or not Nazis should be allowed on Substack is different from the question of how successful they have been at setting up shop here. But it’s clear from Newton’s reporting that he was interested in determining the scope of the problem — that’s why he conducted what he portrayed as a fairly comprehensive search of potentially violating accounts. He mentioned the search multiple times, in fact, but never explained to his readers exactly what the results were, except in rather vague terms.

In addition to thinking it was wrong of Platformer to quote so selectively from Substack’s statement, I was also confused about the numerical discrepancy between Katz’s article and the results of Platformer’s search. Katz said he found 16 explicitly pro-Nazi accounts, while Newton said his team “analyzed dozens of Substacks for pro-Nazi content” but ultimately only sent six offending ones to Substack. It seems like, at the very least, if Katz had found 16 pro-Nazi accounts, those would be on the list Newton sent to Substack.

So I emailed Newton about this discrepancy. He quickly responded:

Hi Jesse — thanks for your note. We gathered potential Nazi Substacks from a variety of sources and didn’t compare notes directly with Katz, so I can’t speak specifically to which 16 blogs he identified. In our case, we picked an intentionally small number of publications to flag to Substack. Knowing that the founders oppose content moderation in most cases, we submitted sites that offered what we believe to be indisputable support for Hitler, Nazis, and the Third Reich. Even then, the founders did not agree with us in every case.

I found it strange that Newton did not “compare notes directly with Katz,” given that Katz was sitting on a list of 16 Nazi Substacks — exactly the thing Newton and his team were looking for.

My response to Newton mentioned that I was considering dinging him and his site for not being transparent about the fact that they had found only six accounts they deemed worthy of flagging to Substack. Newton responded: “Extremist researchers encouraged me not to share specific examples or numbers, saying that this had proven dangerous for other people who have challenged Nazis directly. So that’s why we did that.”

I responded: “Ah, interesting — did they specify how it could prove dangerous to reveal how many Nazi accounts you found?” Newton’s reply read, in part, “Basically when the Nazis find out that you’re the reason their account no longer exists, they doxx you and try to make your life miserable.”

This confused me. Newton had just published a post stating that he had flagged some Nazi accounts to Substack and that Substack had banned them as a result. Surely that would be all the information even a particularly dim Nazi would need to ascertain that Newton and his site had been responsible for his newsletter’s banishment. What did the number have to do with it? “Not trying to be difficult,” I responded, “but won’t they find out by reading the newsletter you just sent out announcing that because of your intervention, Substack had banned some Nazi accounts?”

In his next email, Newton changed the subject:

When I started this I never imagined that Substack would frame this entire thing around a list of Substacks that Platformer had submitted — and then have Hamish leak the number to Shellenberger’s reporters, after telling me that all our conversations were off the record. My hope was that our effort would result in a policy change, and that if any numbers were shared by Substack they would be the result of a comprehensive review of the platform, rather than based solely on our partial volunteer effort.

Instead, Substack shared the number, now it’s everywhere, and yes, the Nazis will have all the information they need.

“Shellenberger” is a reference to Michael Shellenberger, who runs Public, a Substack where Zaid Jilani and Alex Gutentag reported on January 5 that “A Substack spokesperson told Public that Newton’s list contains just 6 Substacks with 29 paid subscribers between them, a tiny fraction of the more than 2 million paid subscribers the service has today.” (I reached out to McKenzie about Newton’s claim that he broke an off-the-record agreement and will update this post if I hear back.)

I’m not trying to forensically nitpick Newton’s responses, but it’s interesting how his description of Platformer’s search effort changed. It had been: “Platformer has worked with other journalists and extremism researchers in an effort to understand the scope of far-right content on the platform. We’ve now reviewed dozens of active, monetized publications that advance violent ideologies, including anti-Semitism and the great replacement theory.” After Newton was presented with the fact that the end result of this was the discovery of a grand total of six Nazi Substacks — a fact he hadn’t passed on to readers — he shifted to describing the search as a “partial volunteer effort.” 

But I was most confused about Newton’s claim that because “Substack shared the number, now it’s everywhere, and yes, the Nazis will have all the information they need.”

“What information do they now have that you’re worried about?” I asked him. Again, he wouldn’t explain exactly how reporting the number of sites he had submitted to Substack would have put him in danger — a serious claim. Instead, he changed the subject again:

Substack has framed this as a response to a handful of user reports from Platformer as opposed to proactive enforcement of its own guidelines. Typically when platforms remove content they own the decision rather than say “after this guy asked us to, we. . . ” Anyway it doesn’t feel great.

I think I’m done answering questions, good luck with your story Jesse!

This doesn’t make any sense. There’s no reason to think Substack would have been aware of these infinitesimally small Substacks if Platformer hadn’t brought them to the company’s attention, so there’s of course nothing strange about Substack responding to Platformer by acknowledging its receipt of the list and saying Okay, we’ve disabled some of those accounts you flagged for us.

Overall, I’m really confused about how it doesn’t put Casey Newton and/or his team in danger at the hands of Nazis to say that they submitted a number of Nazi newsletters to Substack and Substack nuked them, but it does put them in danger to say the specific number of newsletters they reported that got nuked. 

Frankly, I think the more likely explanation here is that Newton and his team didn’t find very many Nazi Substacks, but that this would have been a difficult thing for them to report. If they did, it would complicate the leading role Platformer had played in stoking this controversy, not to mention piss off subscribers already increasingly convinced Substack is basically the film-premiere scene in Inglourious Basterds.

For transparency’s sake, I should note that I originally approached Newton anticipating that I would fold this subplot into my larger piece about Substack’s supposed Nazi problem. After we corresponded I decided to do a dedicated post about Platformer’s coverage of this controversy. That in mind, here’s the last bit of our correspondence, which follows directly from the previous email I excerpted.

Me:

Okay, just want to give you one last chance to answer the question: How is it the case that saying “We told Substack about some Nazi accounts” we found [sic] a safe thing for you to say while “We told Substack about six Nazi accounts we found” is a dangerous thing for you to say? I’m just failing to understand that and want to make sure I’m not missing something obvious.

No worries if you don’t want to correspond further. I’m gonna write this up as a shorter item, separate from my larger take on the situation. It’ll basically just be about this conversation and the fact that you didn’t reach out to Katz to get his list of 16 allegedly Nazi accounts.

Newton:

I did reach out to him, I just didn’t get his precise list of 16 Nazi accounts and then review them one by one to see if we agreed with his interpretation. We just got a whole big list together from him and others and picked a selection of the worst of the worst.

I feel like you’re not really listening to me on the other point and don’t have anything more to say on it.

Also, while you’re free to write up whatever you want, you originally told me you were fact checking a piece about something else, and so to now use this as fodder for a separate thing is not consistent with what you told me. Was hoping I would not regret responding but now I’m fairly sure I will.

Me:

Could you send me the whole big list? The whole reason I got waylaid here is because of that discrepancy between Katz finding 16 Nazi accounts and you guys only being able to find a half-dozen tiny ones. It just didn’t really make sense to me, because surely your guys’ goal would be to send Substack a list of as many Nazi accounts as you could find, no? What would be the point of leaving Nazi accounts on the table rather than citing them to Substack as evidence 

that they should take care of this problem? It sounds like the ones you sent were, in fact, quite bad, as evidenced by the fact that Substack nuked ’em.

Newton:

Bye!

This only confused me further. So Platformer, in its goal to assemble a potential list of Nazi Substacks and confront the company over its policy, did reach out to a reporter who wrote that he had found 16 Nazi Substacks, but didn’t ask him for the list? 

This whole thing is very strange. Casey Newton has every right to stop answering questions about his reporting process, but if I had to guess, Platformer simply got out ahead of its skis amid the wave of outrage directed at Substack, decided to play a leading role in what was a strange mix of an activist and a journalistic effort, and then found itself unable to walk back the rather strong claims it had made about Substack’s Nazi problem.

Of course Platformer could have handled this differently: it could have, for example, fact-checked Katz’s claim that he found 16 explicitly Nazi Substacks, which is still just sitting out there, unverified (Katz didn’t immediately return a request for comment I sent him last night, but I’ll update this post if he does get back to me), and could have used its considerable resources and clout to investigate how many Nazis are on Substack and how much money they are making. Perhaps, if it had done so, it would have found out that there is a real problem here! We still don’t know, because it’s hard to prove this sort of negative and no one has come close to proving the affirmative.

Instead, Platformer didn’t even do the most basic journalism — getting Katz’s list and checking it! This is not good reporting, and it fits a pattern I’ve discussed in this newsletter before: journalists caring more about showing they are on the right side of a controversy than critically investigating that controversy.

---

Questions? Comments? Estimates of the number of Nazis on Substack? I’m at singalminded@gmail.com or on Twitter at @jessesingal. The image of the malevolent blogger, who is probably a Nazi, comes via the ChatGPT prompt “a cartoon image of an evil blogger with ill intentions, wide format.”

1. Two Substack products — this newsletter and the podcast I co-host, Blocked and Reported, generate the vast majority of my income. Back in 2021, Substack gave my co-host Katie Herzog and me an advance to move our BARPod from Patreon to Substack. That yearlong agreement has since lapsed. These days Substack is providing us with some support finding advertisers and coordinating ad buys as part of an experimental pilot program, as well as ongoing access to Getty Images until later this year, but beyond that we are operating under the same agreement as anyone else and paying the normal 10% cut of our gross revenue to the company. This newsletter, meanwhile, never received any direct support from Substack, other than access to Getty Images, which if memory serves I asked Substack to tack on to our BARPod arrangement. All that said, Substack is built in a manner that allows me/us to take my/our subscribers elsewhere if we so choose, so there’s no sense in which I am bound to this platform, though, potential-conflicts-wise, I absolutely feel a sense of loyalty toward it because of the positive effect is has had on my career. (Update: After this post went up I heard from Substack, asking me to make it clear that the company isn’t usually involved in ads stuff, and that we’re part of an experimental pilot program. This is true, so I updated my disclosure accordingly.)