Substack, Freedom of Expression, and Tolerance for the Intolerant

Substack founder and CEO Chris Best claims credit for helping muckrakers find their voice, but he does the same for Nazis, too.

In a chatroom on 32bit.cafe's Discourse server, Manuel Moreale pointed me to a bit of self-congratulation by Substack founder and CEO Chris Best: The fight for free speech in 2025 and beyond and said, I look forward to read your very polite commentary on this. He did not need to tell me that he was joking, the joke being that I have already expressed my contempt for Substack in terms that you are not supposed to use on broadcast radio in the US between 6:00am and 10:00am when children might be listening.

(Never mind that said children generally learn that sort of salty language from their own parents.)

However, instead of letting the joke remain a joke, I shall treat it as a challenge. Shall we begin?

Chris Best talks big about the muckrakers for whom Substack provides a platform, whom I will list below:

He is justifiably proud of hosting the likes of Salman Rushdie, the award-winning author of The Satanic Verses, for which he still lives under a death sentence issued by Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. I had first attempted to read Rushdie as a child, wanting to see for myself what sort of fiction could provoke such ire, and grew to admire Rushdie for his quiet but resolute defiance. I can only hope to find such courage myself should I be put to the test.

Chris Best and his fellow Substack founders Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi are wise to cultivate such connections. What better way to flex one’s street cred as a principled defender of freedom of expression?

One could almost forgive Substack for also hosting Alex Berenson, a conservative author of spy thrillers also known for spreading misinformation about cannabis and COVID-19. Less forgivable are the names Chris Best omits. Allow me to list a few of them, since Mr. Best would not:

Most egregious of these are Khan, Winegard, Singal, and Spencer. Khan and Winegard promote scientific racism. Jesse Singal exhibits an unhealthy obsession with transgender people that exceeds mere fetishism. And Richard Spencer is damned lucky he only got punched in the face for being a neo-Nazi.

However, the First Amendment and a couple centuries worth of legal precedent guarantee Substack’s right to host these people. Substack is not merely a platform. It is not a “common carrier”. It is, in fact, a publisher. As a publisher, Substack makes editorial decisions whenever it engages in any sort of moderation, such as finally giving a few particularly egregious — but not particularly lucrative — Nazis the boot. These editorial decisions are protected speech under US law.

More troubling in my opinion is Substack’s willingness to take their tithe from paid publications pushing right-wing ideologies and bigotry. Nonetheless, it would be hypocritical of me to begrudge Substack’s stated determination to host any speech that is legal in the US and protected by the First Amendment. After all, the provider that hosts starbreaker.org — Nearly Free Speech — has a similar policy.

The difference between Substack and Nearly Free Speech is that the latter does not profit by hosting egregiously offensive speech. They might provide hosting for Nazis, but they make donations in excess of the estimate profit they might make by hosting Nazis to anti-Nazi organizations. They call this policy “Morons Funding the Fight Against Morons”.

I think it is a reasonable compromise: to provide hosting to those airing repugnant views but not to profit thereby. It does not appear to be a compromise that Substack is willing to make. You see, if the Pinkerite blog and Hope Not Hate are on the money, Substack are part of a right-wing propaganda network funded by Marc Andreessen, among others.

The respectable journalists and writers that Chris Best brags about hosting on Substack might not realize that they are lending their prestige to a Nazi bar. But if they do know, and choose to remain, they become complicit.

Is this “guilt by association”? It is no more so than refusing to host Nazis is “censorship” if you are not the US government. Substack has the right to host the likes of Richard Spencer. I have an equal right to judge them for doing so, speak in opposition to their policy on my own website, and refuse to offer that site any support of any kind. Their rights to freedom of speech and association end where mine begin.

However, many conservaties would insist otherwise. They would insist that their freedom of speech includes the right to not be criticized. But that is typical of conservatives, who think the rule of law should protect them without binding them and bind the rest of us without protecting us. As Frank Wilhoit observed on Crooked Timber, the double standard lies at the heart of conservatism. Thus conservatism is and will forever remain a morally and intellectually bankrupt ideology whose apologists engage in defending the indefensible. And when these apologists find that sophistry fails them, they will reach for a gun.

Where does that leave Substack? Substack, it would appear, is a venture capital funded incubator for new sophistries with which to justify the existence of in-groups whom the law must protect but cannot bind and outgroups whom the law must bind but will not protect. Its product is propaganda. Its customers are not readers, but those whose business is the manufacture of consent. Put as charitably as possible, it is an attempt to avoid resorting to outright violence to justify the continued rule of an overprivileged few over the many as long as possible.

Thus I will not say that Substack should be forced by law to ban Nazis. We have too many precedents for such censorship already. Whereas the likes of Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi seem willing to use freedom of expression to undermine this fundamental right, it falls to the rest of us to use that same right to protect it and ourselves by criticizing Substack, criticizing those who use it, and refusing to read or write for Substack ourselves.

There is ample cause to criticize Substack. In addition to pretending to be an ideologically neutral platform dedicated to upholding freedom of speech and freedom of the press, Substack has by their own admission paid a select group of prominent writers cash advances to start newsletters on Substack. Furthermore, with the creation of Substack Notes and their use of algorithmic recommendations, Substack is no longer a mere host for newsletters but yet another social media platform seeking to juice engagement. They may even be inflating subscriber and follower counts, though most of the speculation I have found concerning such shenanigans is on Substack itself and I am not willing to link to any of it.

Thus I suggest the following: