Substack pulls Nazi copy in free speech row

THE popular newsletter service Substack is removing five pro-nazi newsletters after an anti-censorship row saw some of its top writers threaten to quit.

The San Francisco start-up, which is backed by some of Silicon Valley’s leading investors, said it would remove the newsletters, just days after it insisted that doing so would threaten its free speech credentials.

Substack allows anybody to set up an account and distribute email newsletters, with the option to charge subscription fees on which Substack takes a commission. However, critics have said a lax approach to moderation has allowed far-right authors to publish their views, with multiple cases of newsletters featuring Nazi symbols.

On Monday night, Substack said it would remove five newsletters that “do indeed violate our existing content guidelines, which prohibit incitements to violence based on protected classes”. It is also removing the accounts behind the publications. The company said it was not changing its rules but merely reconsidering how it applies its existing policies that ban inciting violence.

The newsletters were small, accounting for around 100 active readers and none of them charging. Hundreds of writers, including the economist Brad Delong and the US professor David Karpf, had signed an open letter urging the company to clarify its position, while some had quit the service entirely, moving their newsletters to rival providers.

More than 100 writers, including Richard Dawkins, had signed a counter-letter arguing that “Substack shouldn’t decide what we read”.

Platformer, a tech newsletter that had threatened to leave the service if it continued to host Nazi content, said the move “resolves the primary concern we identified here last week” but it was continuing to consider its position.