I can’t believe Katz would approvingly retweet a post celebrating your future death. Usually with these types they just hint at it or privately share the sentiment amongst themselves. He must be uniquely unhinged about you
I subscribed to The Economist and read your article.
I am very glad to see that attention is being given to the matter of cherry-picking data, and that in the future there may be an incentive to make primary data and research methods publicly available.
Plagiarism has been a matter of great interest in the news lately, but misrepresenting research findings deserves just as much attention.
This was really informative, Jesse. I was one of the anti Nazi signers (because who could be pro Nazi) and it’s disappointing to discover that it was much ado about nothing.
This is something of a bummer, but it confirms some pet theories. I was a happy paid subscriber to the Atlantic for some years, but circa 2022 I grew extremely disillusioned with "actually pandemic such-and-such"--they're free to write and print those articles, and I'm free to stop paying for them.
All of that is to say--dangit, I wish shoddy feelingsball crap didn't get published. Some otherwise-good organizations have already fallen because they published such crap. More will follow. It sucks.
Lol Katz. I first encountered that retard when Notes rolled out on Substack. I kept seeing Andrew Sullivan’s notes and Katz would always respond with something about how Sullivan was harming Katz’s pet victims. Such people are too antisocial to understand that society is more at peace when their pet victims are cowed into silence and don’t dare to make demands upon the majority. He’s just throwing a tantrum because the pendulum has swung back.
Just once, I'd like to hear one of these guys acknowledge how unpopular Nazism is. We literally won a war over this and they want to keep acting like we're one tweet away from fascism.
What is so annoying about all this is that Substack is amongst the online venues where I've encountered the least amount of nazi types. Sure a few right wing jerks here and there. (Maybe people even think I'm one. Sorry, can't help it occassionally!) But normally on sites like this you quickly bumble into the spot where you say "Oh here's the corner where the right wing crazies hang out." And I have yet to bumble into that here! I've bumbled into a "War & Peace" reading club. I've bumbled into a billion navel gazing pieces written about the act of writing itself. But no nazis! Mr. Katz, I find it shockingly nazi free here compared to most of the internet. I wish you had jusyblwt us have that. :(
Those of us who are familiar with the history of the Israel/Palestine debate and attempts to censor voices from one side or the other will know that one of the most notorious episodes occurred at the Oxford Union debate on the issue in 1964 between Lebanese writer Edward Atiyah (putting the pro-Palestinian case) and UK Labour MP Maurice Edelman (putting the pro-Israel case). Atiyah was shouted down as an alleged Nazi by the finest young minds in the United Kingdom, and in his efforts to make himself heard he suffered a fatal heart attack. The episode is described by Fred Halliday.
I think Casey spoke truer than he knew: the cause really isn't going anywhere. Why is Katz still trying to panic us into thinking it is going somewhere?
The last passage on the way moderation is applied is the kilkstroke here. Open letter culture is about leveraging the ambiguity in the terms of service on these sites to gain power by silencing or smearing other people. Katz's campaign wouldn't have ended with far-right content - the goal was quite clearly to inculcate the same weaponised false moralism that plays out on every other (also Nazi-infested) platform, and then start to purge content from other 'problematic' writers. The only goal for Katz? Self-aggrandisement and profit, and the elimination of competitors. It's so nakedly obvious. And Platformer et. al leaving is a pyrrhic victory... now watch them pivot to saying *all* content creators left on Substack are Nazi-adjacent, or complicit.
There are major factual issues with the entity known as Jonathan M. Katz. It amuses me that many liberals think that the Atlantic is an august publication. There are so many lies and half-truths and pseudoinformation that lacks context in a plethora of mainstream media organs, yet liberals suck all this up. Look at the insanity of Russiagate, aka BlueAnon,
The last thing Katz is doing is fighting fascism. What he is really against is heterodox thought. That is why Substack is such a target for wastrels like Katz and his ilk. What are a few lies or mashed-up passages when you are trying to take down Substack? I cannot imagine Katz can look at himself in his own mirrors. They are probably cracked anyway.
I can but applaud your ability to keep a fair mind even in the middle of controversies, Jesse. Someone said that you sounded angry... if this is you being angry, you are a Zen monk.
This that we see, which we have been seeing for years now, is a reflection of a form of mental ailment that masquerades as politics -- something that Haidt and Lukianoff have identified pretty well: the hunger for censorship is the desperate call for protection of personalities that refuse to grow up, or who happily revert to this form of infantilism. "Mummy, daddy, Peter pulled me a tongue, make him stop!", "Mummy, daddy, the cat hissed at me, I don't like it, kick it out, kick it out!" They will never get tired of it. There will always be things that offend and irritate them and make them sad, because they are becoming increasingly incapable of dealing with reality, and it is always all or nothing, it is always maximalist, no compromise and no reflection: THIS THING IS OFFENSIVE AND IT HAS TO GO.
They have learned that mobbing works to get what they want, like children with poor parenting learn that throwing tantrums gets them what they want. They learned this because they did not get any substantial pushback, except from the hysteria on the opposite end (THIS IS INTOLERABLE! THE WORLD IS FALLING APART! SOCIETY WILL DISSOLVE INTO SHEER ANARCHY IF THIS IS ALLOWED TO EXIST, AND THE OGRES WILL EAT OUR INNOCENT CHILDREN! SAVE US GOD! BRING IN A STRONGMAN!) -- the few remaining reasonable adults were to cowed by the screams or stunned by the insurgence of so many "harms" (for harm is a concept which they rightfully learned to be very sensitive about), to make a firm stand for the principles of liberalism. One can debate about the many who ride these tigers for self-aggrandizement, but I am afraid that many have convinced themselves of the righteousness of the cause. Feels good to be an Elect, ask any cult member. So here we are.
There need be more people refusing to bend the results of inquiry to a desired narrative, even if it hurts, and more communities and organizations willing to stand on principle on free speech and not be budged.
There are bad attitudes and ugly ideas, yes. They must be countered, not silenced. Banning symbols, banning words, it is a temporary spike of satisfaction that changes nothing. In Europe we banned Nazis since the end of WWII; in Germany it is still illegal, and carries criminal charges, to make a gesture resembling the Nazi salute. So we have no Nazi, right? Wrong. The Nazis have multiplied everywhere... and right-thinking people have no resource against them than fits of outrage, because the imposed silence produced an inability to counter that ideology (the name is enough! -- no, the name is not enough) and to address the reasons why people may become attracted to that ideology.
For example. I am a paid subscriber of Freddie de Boer, and I continue to be, despite my disagreement on some of his opinions, and despite the fact that I find his position on Israel revolting on a human, political and personal level. His thinking head is worth listening to, and those of his opinions that are abhorrent to me should be heard and countered (even if I do not have the stomach to do so, I simply do not read those articles of his).
But I am beating a dead horse here.
P.S.
"5. is defamatory or libellous [sic];" <== That's British English. I do not know if this is the reason why, but the Ghost Foundation is based in Singapore, where they use British English. (Now I am tempted by a pun about American cultural imperialism but I will refrain)
I do think there are important changes needed to how we think about online moderation, and I think what we need to settle on is something like due process. Here’s hoping the good guys win and we end up with something like that on substack.
Tell Katz your fact-checker is better than the entire team of them at The Atlantic. 😀
It’s funny that there just are so few nazis on Substack that Katz has to write creative fiction to make the problem seem serious.
I can’t believe Katz would approvingly retweet a post celebrating your future death. Usually with these types they just hint at it or privately share the sentiment amongst themselves. He must be uniquely unhinged about you
I subscribed to The Economist and read your article.
I am very glad to see that attention is being given to the matter of cherry-picking data, and that in the future there may be an incentive to make primary data and research methods publicly available.
Plagiarism has been a matter of great interest in the news lately, but misrepresenting research findings deserves just as much attention.
The Atlantic’s at it again today:
https://archive.ph/2024.01.12-205913/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/01/substack-exodus-social-media-moderation/677113/
This was really informative, Jesse. I was one of the anti Nazi signers (because who could be pro Nazi) and it’s disappointing to discover that it was much ado about nothing.
This is something of a bummer, but it confirms some pet theories. I was a happy paid subscriber to the Atlantic for some years, but circa 2022 I grew extremely disillusioned with "actually pandemic such-and-such"--they're free to write and print those articles, and I'm free to stop paying for them.
All of that is to say--dangit, I wish shoddy feelingsball crap didn't get published. Some otherwise-good organizations have already fallen because they published such crap. More will follow. It sucks.
Lol Katz. I first encountered that retard when Notes rolled out on Substack. I kept seeing Andrew Sullivan’s notes and Katz would always respond with something about how Sullivan was harming Katz’s pet victims. Such people are too antisocial to understand that society is more at peace when their pet victims are cowed into silence and don’t dare to make demands upon the majority. He’s just throwing a tantrum because the pendulum has swung back.
Just once, I'd like to hear one of these guys acknowledge how unpopular Nazism is. We literally won a war over this and they want to keep acting like we're one tweet away from fascism.
What is so annoying about all this is that Substack is amongst the online venues where I've encountered the least amount of nazi types. Sure a few right wing jerks here and there. (Maybe people even think I'm one. Sorry, can't help it occassionally!) But normally on sites like this you quickly bumble into the spot where you say "Oh here's the corner where the right wing crazies hang out." And I have yet to bumble into that here! I've bumbled into a "War & Peace" reading club. I've bumbled into a billion navel gazing pieces written about the act of writing itself. But no nazis! Mr. Katz, I find it shockingly nazi free here compared to most of the internet. I wish you had jusyblwt us have that. :(
Those of us who are familiar with the history of the Israel/Palestine debate and attempts to censor voices from one side or the other will know that one of the most notorious episodes occurred at the Oxford Union debate on the issue in 1964 between Lebanese writer Edward Atiyah (putting the pro-Palestinian case) and UK Labour MP Maurice Edelman (putting the pro-Israel case). Atiyah was shouted down as an alleged Nazi by the finest young minds in the United Kingdom, and in his efforts to make himself heard he suffered a fatal heart attack. The episode is described by Fred Halliday.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/arendt_deutscher_3813jsp/
I think Casey spoke truer than he knew: the cause really isn't going anywhere. Why is Katz still trying to panic us into thinking it is going somewhere?
The last passage on the way moderation is applied is the kilkstroke here. Open letter culture is about leveraging the ambiguity in the terms of service on these sites to gain power by silencing or smearing other people. Katz's campaign wouldn't have ended with far-right content - the goal was quite clearly to inculcate the same weaponised false moralism that plays out on every other (also Nazi-infested) platform, and then start to purge content from other 'problematic' writers. The only goal for Katz? Self-aggrandisement and profit, and the elimination of competitors. It's so nakedly obvious. And Platformer et. al leaving is a pyrrhic victory... now watch them pivot to saying *all* content creators left on Substack are Nazi-adjacent, or complicit.
There are major factual issues with the entity known as Jonathan M. Katz. It amuses me that many liberals think that the Atlantic is an august publication. There are so many lies and half-truths and pseudoinformation that lacks context in a plethora of mainstream media organs, yet liberals suck all this up. Look at the insanity of Russiagate, aka BlueAnon,
The last thing Katz is doing is fighting fascism. What he is really against is heterodox thought. That is why Substack is such a target for wastrels like Katz and his ilk. What are a few lies or mashed-up passages when you are trying to take down Substack? I cannot imagine Katz can look at himself in his own mirrors. They are probably cracked anyway.
I can but applaud your ability to keep a fair mind even in the middle of controversies, Jesse. Someone said that you sounded angry... if this is you being angry, you are a Zen monk.
This that we see, which we have been seeing for years now, is a reflection of a form of mental ailment that masquerades as politics -- something that Haidt and Lukianoff have identified pretty well: the hunger for censorship is the desperate call for protection of personalities that refuse to grow up, or who happily revert to this form of infantilism. "Mummy, daddy, Peter pulled me a tongue, make him stop!", "Mummy, daddy, the cat hissed at me, I don't like it, kick it out, kick it out!" They will never get tired of it. There will always be things that offend and irritate them and make them sad, because they are becoming increasingly incapable of dealing with reality, and it is always all or nothing, it is always maximalist, no compromise and no reflection: THIS THING IS OFFENSIVE AND IT HAS TO GO.
They have learned that mobbing works to get what they want, like children with poor parenting learn that throwing tantrums gets them what they want. They learned this because they did not get any substantial pushback, except from the hysteria on the opposite end (THIS IS INTOLERABLE! THE WORLD IS FALLING APART! SOCIETY WILL DISSOLVE INTO SHEER ANARCHY IF THIS IS ALLOWED TO EXIST, AND THE OGRES WILL EAT OUR INNOCENT CHILDREN! SAVE US GOD! BRING IN A STRONGMAN!) -- the few remaining reasonable adults were to cowed by the screams or stunned by the insurgence of so many "harms" (for harm is a concept which they rightfully learned to be very sensitive about), to make a firm stand for the principles of liberalism. One can debate about the many who ride these tigers for self-aggrandizement, but I am afraid that many have convinced themselves of the righteousness of the cause. Feels good to be an Elect, ask any cult member. So here we are.
There need be more people refusing to bend the results of inquiry to a desired narrative, even if it hurts, and more communities and organizations willing to stand on principle on free speech and not be budged.
There are bad attitudes and ugly ideas, yes. They must be countered, not silenced. Banning symbols, banning words, it is a temporary spike of satisfaction that changes nothing. In Europe we banned Nazis since the end of WWII; in Germany it is still illegal, and carries criminal charges, to make a gesture resembling the Nazi salute. So we have no Nazi, right? Wrong. The Nazis have multiplied everywhere... and right-thinking people have no resource against them than fits of outrage, because the imposed silence produced an inability to counter that ideology (the name is enough! -- no, the name is not enough) and to address the reasons why people may become attracted to that ideology.
For example. I am a paid subscriber of Freddie de Boer, and I continue to be, despite my disagreement on some of his opinions, and despite the fact that I find his position on Israel revolting on a human, political and personal level. His thinking head is worth listening to, and those of his opinions that are abhorrent to me should be heard and countered (even if I do not have the stomach to do so, I simply do not read those articles of his).
But I am beating a dead horse here.
P.S.
"5. is defamatory or libellous [sic];" <== That's British English. I do not know if this is the reason why, but the Ghost Foundation is based in Singapore, where they use British English. (Now I am tempted by a pun about American cultural imperialism but I will refrain)
You’re a good person, Jesse Singal.
I do think there are important changes needed to how we think about online moderation, and I think what we need to settle on is something like due process. Here’s hoping the good guys win and we end up with something like that on substack.