Your Trust
I hope that I am always worthy of it
When you subscribe to Emeth, you are giving me your time. When you hold a paid subscription, you are giving me your time and your money. These are extremely valuable things, and the way I see it, I have a responsibility to be trustworthy in order feel right about receiving them.
Today’s post isn’t about Freemasonry, and it isn’t about things that I enjoy writing about, but it is about trust in general, and the trust that I hope you can continue to place in me. And the work we are doing here on Emeth.
Towards the end of November, The Atlantic Magazine published an essay by a fellow named Jonathan Katz entitled “Substack Has A Nazi Problem.” The essay made claims about Substack platforming, promoting, and monetizing Neo-Nazis.
This is important, because Substack is the company that provides the software that Emeth is built upon.
As a bit of background, I should mention that as traditional media continues to collapse due to economic problems with its model, huge numbers famous journalists, some world famous and extremely well accredited journalists have themselves left their traditional media employers and built their own media empires using this exact same Substack software. You can find them here, and it is widely reported that a good number of them are now making incomes in excess of seven figures.
None of that is good for traditional, long form, media outlets. Substack has been under attack by these outlets for years now, and I don’t doubt that Mr. Katz’s article is just one more instance of that effort to discredit the upstart technology company that is badly cutting into the bottom line of magazines like The Atlantic.
But, whatever the reasons the article was published were don’t matter overly much. The claim that this company is overrun with Neo-Nazis is something that shouldn’t be ignored.
Ultimately, there are a handful of claims at play:
That Substack allows its software to be used by Neo-Nazis.
That Substack, as a company, promotes the writings of Neo-Nazis.
That Substack makes it easy for Neo-Nazis to make money publishing Neo-Nazi content.
That Substack does no moderation of what is written and published with its software, other than moderation against pornography.
There has been a debate about these claims for weeks now. I weighed in on that debate by signing an open letter along with a number of other publishers. That letter can be found at:
Substack Shouldn’t Decide What We Read
If you read that letter, you’ll notice that some of the signatories are unknown people with small little communities like me, while some are truly famous people with publications reaching millions like Bari Weiss. And everyone in between.
Taking the claims one by one:
It does seem that there is a tiny handful of people who have produced explicitly Neo-Nazi content with Substack’s software. But, it doesn’t seem that any of these people have even a small following, nor an active publishing schedule.
One of the founders of Substack has a podcast, and once, long ago, he interviewed a right wing dirtbag on that podcast. I’ve read an essay or two from said dirtbag. I would certainly classify him as an anti-social dirtbag. But, he doesn’t claim to be a Neo-Nazi. Additionally, he is a traditionally published author, by a large U.S. publishing house. I think that he is a dirtbag, not a Neo-Nazi, and not someone I would waste my time reading. Interviewing him was, to my mind, an error. But, I can see no reason for Substack to deny him the use of their software when large publishing houses are willing to publish his books.
This point is related to point No. 1. There is no evidence that I have seen that Neo-Nazis are making money here. And many, many people have asked to see examples of this claim.
This is the important one to me. I’ll expand on it in some detail. The claim that there is no moderation here beyond moderation against pornography.
It is true that Substack itself does not moderate content published with its software, beyond moderating against pornography, calls for violence, threats, and the like.
But, it is not true that Substack is without moderation.
Substack does not use a centralized moderation scheme, beyond that mentioned above, rather it uses dispersed moderation.
In other words, I moderate here on Emeth. Bari Weiss moderates her publication, and in like manner, each and every person who writes on Emeth moderates in their own way, according to their own standards.
To claim that Substack is unmoderated is absurd. Indeed, using Emeth as an example, it is safe to say that some parts of Substack, like Emeth, are moderated with quite the heavy hand. There are no Neo-Nazis, nor any other undesirable dirtbags here, of any stripe.
This has resulted in the Substack ecosystem, as a whole, being a place for great conversations and extremely little disgusting/disquieting commentary, much unlike the large social media platforms.
Because those of us who write using Substack understand that our readers want a curated, enjoyable, and targeted reading experience. No central moderation system could do the same.
Would Substack the company know that posts encouraging people to Join The Illuminati are all a scam? Would it know that people who read Emeth are probably only here for Freemasonry? Would it know that Freemasonry seeks to unite men no matter their nationality, religion, or political persuasion? Would it know that it is impossible to be made a Mason online?
Of course not, and that is why a centralized moderation system could not work here. That is why I must do the work of moderating here at Emeth, because I know about Freemasonry.
You can read the moderation policy I use on Emeth:
Emeth Content Moderation Policy
Ultimately, the people calling for centralized moderation on this software platform, led by Mr. Katz, push falsehoods over truth. He, and they, continually claim that there is no moderation in the Substack ecosphere, and that those of us encouraging the company to stay the course were calling for there to be no moderation. Neither of these things are true, but traditional media outlets, and others, have published the false narrative.
We, and the company, are supportive of decentralized moderation, not zero moderation. We believe that each person publishing here knows best about his or her readers and how to serve their needs.
All of this came to a head today, because the founders of the company made a statement, concluding and declaring that they are going to stay the course and continue with the decentralized moderation that has worked so well at keeping civility and actual discussion alive on Substack, and conversely, Emeth.
That statement can be read here:
The fact is that there are bad people in every space on the internet. It can’t be other than that because there are bad people in our world.
But, finding them through Substack is virtually impossible, unless one specifically goes out looking for them. That is because on Substack, one only sees what he or she subscribes to, follows, or is recommended by a writer they follow.
Even Mr. Katz admitted in his article for The Atlantic that he had to go searching through the dark recesses of the Telegram app (which is in no way related to Substack) in order to find the negative content he wrote about.
Here’s the bottom line.
Despite what you may have read, Substack is not filled with Neo-Nazi content. Substack does not promote Neo-Nazi content, and no Neo-Nazis are making bundles of cash with the Substack software.
None of that is true, and it can be very easily proven by simply searching around here.
What Substack has done is allowed people like me to get our ideas out into the world, and create communities, large or small, around those ideas. Shared online spaces for discussion.
As our letter said, little walled gardens, beautiful and affirming spaces in the online world where we can all share our common interests.
If people want to find Neo-Nazis or other evil dirtbags, the places to do that are Twitter, Facebook, Gab, and all the rest. Folks like that don’t run rampant here, for there is no interest in the hate and division that they try to sow here.
I write all of this because you have placed your trust in me, and I hate the thought that you could run across false narratives and come to believe that I’ve led you to a place of discord instead of a place of peace.
It is my hope that by reading this, and if you like, the linked documents, you will see that I’ve not taken you to an online place filled with Neo-Nazis. I hope that you’ll continue to place your trust in me, and your faith in this shared project to create truly Legendary Freemasonry.
As always, my profound Thanks for your support!
Looking for a great gift for a fellow Freemason?
Might I suggest the gift of Emeth?
This is simply another attempt by leftists to take over another media platform, plain and simple. They can't stand the fact that there is a place they can't control the content on. The neo-nazi claim is a front to the much larger desire to institute a substack version of "fact checkers" to quash dissent.
I am a firm believer in free speech. On a platform like substack, you actually have to find and subscribe the content you're looking for. Don't like what I or someone else has to say? Don't subscribe. Viola! Problem solved.
The difference here is that I would hope that this platform is the adults on the playground of the internet, where more rational and thought provoking topics (besides my silly portion of it) are written and expressed. Not the juvenile crap you find elsewhere. So far, I think that has held true. If there is stupid crap out there, I wouldn't really know anyway. I don't go searching for it.
Writing is the bridge between thoughts and action. And we know trolls love bridges. Some people just have it laten inside them to divide. This whole hysteria used with neo natzis is an old one. Even trolls in our own government system tried convincing us all the "our greatest threat, is white supremacy groups." The only stats they can come up with is based on unverified internet comments, and of course the white supremacy groups that the FBI had set up, like the Proud Boys and the false flag operation witch led to an attempt kidnapping of Govenor Witmer. Not to mention a lot of political trolling found by Elon on Twitter, with millions of bot-accounts.
The number one problem we have in America are trolls in government and social media who want to cause division. Emeth live up to Its name here. A place of truth and unity