Content moderation has been a thorny topic in 2020. And when I say \u201cthorny,\u201d I mean in the sense of having multiple congressional hearings on the subject. Twitter and Facebook in particular have been mired in concerns around the subject, fielding complaints that they both haven\u2019t done enough to weed out problematic content and suggestions that they\u2019re a censorship-happy, shadow-banning enemy of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latter appears to be the sole reason for the existence of the right wing-focused Twitter competitor, Parler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Substack <\/a> grows in popularity, the newsletter platform is going to face some tremendously difficult questions around content moderation. Today it published a lengthy blog post<\/a> hoping to nip some of those concerns in the bud. The write-up offers some caveats, but largely espouses the platform\u2019s commitment to free speech, noting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stance reflects Substack\u2019s commitment to a subscription-based model, rather than the ads that currently keep the lights on for services like Twitter and Facebook. Instead, it takes a 10% cut of writers\u2019 subscription revenue. Certainly that frees it up from sponsorship boycotts to some degree. The subscription model also means that users have to opt into specific content more so than on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, where content boundaries are far more fluid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are happy to compete with \u2018Substack but with more controls on speech\u2019 just as we are happy to compete with \u2018Substack but with advertising,\u2019 \u201d the company writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, there are financial considerations \u2014 there always are. Substack has a vested interest in supporting right-wing and conservative voices who have decried Facebook and Twitter\u2019s practices. Notably, The Dispatch is at the top of the service\u2019s politics leaderboard. In an interview with TechCrunch earlier this year, editor Stephen Hayes called the service, \u201cunapologetically center-right,\u201d while its current blurb refers to it as \u201cconservative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNone of these views are neutral,\u201d Substack writes. \u201cMany Silicon Valley technology companies strive to make their platforms apolitical, but we think such a goal is impossible to achieve.\u201d There\u2019s no doubt some truth in that. Any position on content moderation can be viewed as a political one to some degree. And equally, none will make everyone \u2014 or even most people \u2014 completely happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it\u2019s also easy to see the service facing some major tests of its current hands-off approach as the service continues to grow in popularity. The service\u2019s approach has involved putting its name out there in front of consumers, meaning it won\u2019t be viewed as a kind of invisible publishing platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Substack is quick to add that there is, naturally, content that crosses the line in spite of this. \u201cOf course, there are limits,\u201d it writes. \u201cWe do not allow porn on Substack, for example, or spam. We do not allow doxxing or harassment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Content moderation has been a thorny topic in 2020. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":19989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5935,5934],"contributor":[],"class_list":["post-19987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-tech-events","tag-content-moderation","tag-substack"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Substack-office.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Techx Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/author\/techxadmin\/"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19987"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techxmedia.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=19987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}