Leaving Substack
On Substack's bigotry and how it has pushed me off the platform
So, I’m leaving Substack. Over the past few months, the Substack app and site have been a haven for me, as I know they have been for many writers. Framed as a safe social platform for creatives to share and thrive, Substack felt different from the likes of Twitter and Instagram. We were all in this together, carving a space based on mutual passion and care, right?
Obviously, no. Not just because that’s a very naive way to approach any social media platform, but because that was never the intention of the creators of Substack, or the majority of its users. This is just orange Twitter. With the huge amount of posts I see from people who have deleted all of their social media except Substack because Substack is different, it seems necessary to note that no it’s not. It might have slightly less Elon Musk and slightly more of a literary focus, but there’s no functional difference between scrolling hours of Notes and scrolling hours of Tweets or Instagram Posts.
The content of these Notes and the gradual creep of right-wing content onto the platform is part of why I’m leaving. Too often in the past few weeks have I gotten halfway into an article or a short story just to crash face-first into explicit TERF, racist, or homophobic rhetoric. This will happen in articles suggested to me in my home feed, articles the platform seems to think I’ll enjoy. There are many good writers on this platform, and too many of them are weaponising their ability to write well and using it to spew hate, often subtly enough to attract the audience they want while barely alienating those who disagree with them.
Then, I read this essay by ismatu gwendolyn, which exposes and discusses the MANY extreme problems at the root of Substack, particularly its complete lack of moderation or rules against hate speech and slurs. The essay explains things much more clearly than I can, so PLEASEEEEE read it right now and support ismatu gwendolyn at threadings.io. I have been lucky enough to not encounter the level of violent hate speech that ismatu discusses, but I have seen countless proud TERFs and homophobes on my feed.
Every platform, every niche of the on-and-offline worlds is experiencing a right-wing shift. Every avid internet-user has been fed explicit right-wing propaganda in some form or another. What I consider uniquely shitty about Substack’s allowance of Nazis, anti-black hate speech, and violent content is the trickery behind it. By dressing up these rules (or lack thereof) in the politics of free speech and “gotcha” content, Substack evades criticism and accountability. In addition to this, the userbase of mostly 20-something-metropolitan-cishet writers on Substack are happy to ignore the issues baked into Substack’s model. On one hand, I understand this avoidance. You’ve finally found a platform where you can converse with like-minded writers and creators, where you can exchange Sex And The City memes and joke about sending poems to your three subscribers. You can convince yourself that this platform is truly different. You can ignore the issues.
On the other, stronger, hand, I don’t understand how this group of people who largely pride themselves on their difference and their outspoken-ness are so content with a platform that clearly sees them as the smallest cog in this machine. Nazis are the ones with money to spend, clearly, so that’s who the platform will continue to pander to. How can we be comfortable forging this “community of writers” when the most vital voices continue to be stopped at the door? Substack is, in its politics, no different to any other large social platform or small boys’ club. The fact that young white women dominate the user base doesn’t remove the fact that Substack does not support marginalised voices, and never has.
There are countless incredible writers on Substack. Freelance writing is huge and the technical aspects of this site are brilliantly done and easy to use. I don’t intend to stop supporting these writers, but I do intend to remove my own work from Substack and delete the app. I’ll be subscribing to everyone I find interesting over the next few weeks, and supporting them from my email inbox, but I’m done with the Notes feed and the algorithmic recommendations.
As for my writing, it can now be found at bethamongotherthings.wordpress.com. Clunky, I know. While I resent Wordpress’s constant recommendation of AI tools, at least I have the choice not to use them, unlike a Substack feed littered with AI art as cover images for human-made writing (how do they not see the irony in that?). All of my Substack posts are archived there instead, including all of the beautiful comments left by you wonderful people. All of my Substack subscribers have been transferred to that new site, so if you’re subscribed to me here (thank u!!), you don’t need to do anything. If you’re not subscribed to me, consider checking out the new site!
Ultimately, I respect the wish for a supportive writing community. I know that this isn’t possible for everyone in real life, and the internet has long been a place for creatives to find refuge. I admire that some people have managed to find that on Substack, and that this app continues to be successful and fulfilling for many people. I simply don’t want my writing associated with it, and I urge other writers to consider if they still do.
I’m ending with a quote from Seth Abramsom, which ismatu gwendolyn uses in their article. See you on Wordpress.
Chris didn’t answer the question he was asked to answer in that interview for the simple reason that Substack as a corporation (not as a group of individuals) is ambivalent on the subjects of racism, antisemitism, misogyny, Islamophobia, bigotry against the LGBTQIA+ community, ableism, ageism, and so on. Your plan is to try to corral the racists into a space they have all chosen to be in so that they only interact with other racists and the non-racists never encounter them at all.
Why not just say that?
You will not be able to keep the racists and misogynists (et al.) in their highly lucrative (to Substack) digital silos. They will escape and smear their feces all over the walls, all the while carrying banners reading FREE SPEECH. That they do not understand what that phrase means, or its history, or when and how it is applied appropriately according to its meaning and history is less of a problem here on Substack than it would be elsewhere because candidly neither do you or Chris.
You have been told repeatedly that you have no idea what you are talking about on these subjects and you have repeatedly framed attempted instruction by people who do—people who know the law, digital communications, cultural theory, and history—as offering up either emotionalized pap or (as you state outright here) mere pretense.
Good luck with that. Just never say you didn’t know better.