![]() ![]() Its appeals to high-minded neutrality are a means of deflecting criticism rather than substantively engaging with it. This is a typical editorial role-Substack is basically acting as a publisher. By approaching and paying writers, it is engaging in curation and elevating some viewpoints above others. We endorse the ability to speak truth to power.”īut the very existence of Substack Pro makes it clear that the company is not a neutral platform. “But we endorse writer independence and autonomy. “We don’t endorse everything anyone says,” its founders wrote. It says it is agnostic about everything else. Substack says its guiding principle is free speech. If that wasn’t enough, Chris Best, one of the company’s three founders, tweeted, “Defund the thought police.” That includes trans writers, but anti-trans ones as well. “We set out to build a system that gives power to writers, especially those who aren’t well accommodated by the dominant media structure,” its founders wrote. ![]() The company also claimed that it was a neutral platform and that its writers reflected the depth, breadth, and diversity of American society. In a blog post published earlier this week, the company essentially accused its critics of creating a straw man by falsely suggesting that its paid program, Substack Pro, was created to fund anti-trans writers. Substack’s response has been defensive and disingenuous. “Over the past several months, I had watched as the platform morphed into a haven for online transphobia, and when I hit my limit, I hit it hard,” wrote Jude Ellison Sady Doyle, who announced they were leaving the platform last week. A number of prominent Substack authors have left the platform in response to revelations that it paid advances to several controversial writers, while some writers with long histories of anti-trans work are thriving. Substack offered another way.īut over the past few weeks, Substack has faced sustained criticism for the first time in its history. With few exceptions, journalism as an industry is in free fall. There would be no quotas or metrics or layoffs or arbitrary changes driven by tech monopolies. Above all, it was a means of escaping the turbulence of the media industry. You could work without a boss and bet on yourself. It was a way to make real money from writing without the hand-to-mouth hustle of freelancing. Substack, the flourishing four-year-old newsletter company, has always touted itself as a savior. ![]()
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