“The PC police are ruining SF/F! We need to go back to the good ole days!” Here is Samuel R. Delany reviewing Star Wars Episode IV–and critiquing it for its lack of women and POC characters. In 1977. You’re very welcome. (His response to the old “It’s just entertainment!” chestnut? Muting half of humanity is not entertaining.) This, right here, is how it is possible to love something–as Delany clearly loved Star Wars–yet recognize its flaws and discuss them in an intelligent, productive way.
Substack: home of Nazis, Covid misinformation, anti-vaccine propaganda & transphobia
(I'm reposting this from my patreon. You can also read it here.)
As the Twitter dumpster fire burns to ashes and artists leave Instagram in droves due to Meta's shit new policies, I have watched more and more friends turn to Substack in the past few months. Please don't do this!! Substack has well-documented problems with platforming literal Nazis, as well as writers spreading Covid misinformation, anti-vaccine propaganda, and transphobia. There has been a major exodus of writers leaving Substack basically every single year since 2021, as the company doubles down and doubles down again at being the welcoming home for people whose views are so extreme and hateful that they've been banned from every other site.
Please read this short article "Substack Has a Nazi Problem: The newsletter platform’s lax content moderation creates an opening for white nationalists eager to get their message out" by Jonathan M. Katz for the Atlantic. Most of the points below are simply in support of this article. If you would like to convince a creator you admire to stop using Substack, sending them this article is a great place to start. (If you hit a paywall, try this link instead.)
(long post below the cut)
Not only is Substack platforming white nationalists, it is creating a space for them to earn money on their hate. "Some Substack newsletters by Nazis and white nationalists have thousands or tens of thousands of subscribers, making the platform a new and valuable tool for creating mailing lists for the far right. And many accept paid subscriptions through Substack, seemingly flouting terms of service that ban attempts to ‘publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes.’ Several, including [Richard] Spencer’s, sport official Substack ‘bestseller’ badges, indicating that they have at a minimum hundreds of paying subscribers. [...] Substack, which takes a 10 percent cut of subscription revenue, makes money when readers pay for Nazi newsletters.” -Jonathan M. Katz, “Substack has a Nazi Problem” (2023)
We aren’t talking about small amounts of money either. Bari Weiss told Axios in December 2024 that her Substack The Free Press “has 136,000 paying subscribers, which implies a minimum annual revenue of $10.9m based on its $80 yearly subscription price.” -Bron Maher, “More than 50 newsletters earn $500,000+ on Substack” (2025) You might remember Bari Weiss from her constant promoting and platforming of anti-transgender extremism. From 2017 until resigning in 2020, Weiss was a staff writer and editor for the opinion section of the New York Times.
Substack is also platforming folks spreading lies about Covid and vaccines. “Dr. Joseph Mercola, touted as ‘the pioneer of the anti-vaccine movement,’ gained fame during the pandemic for spreading COVID misinformation and offering alternative, false 'cures'. The osteopathic physician has landed official warnings from the FDA for his claims, which span various social media platforms, each with their own content policy regarding health misinformation. In 2021, Mercola found one platform less restrictive on censorship: Substack. [...] There is a burgeoning cluster of anti-vaxxers, white nationalists, and QAnon influencers finding the Substack ecosystem more lenient than others.
Of the current list of top paid political newsletters on Substack, former Times writer Alex Berenson and tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch come in at sixth and nineteenth respectively, both known for spreading COVID misinformation. Berenson charges $6 per month for his newsletter, while Kirsch is asking for $5. Mercola is number 13, charging $5 per month. Substack takes 10 percent.” -Meera Navlakha, “On Substack, Covid Misinformation is Allowed To Flourish” (2022)
Substack has also allowed transphobia, including the doxxing of multiple trans women, to go unpunished on the site. “Increasingly, Substack is tolerating and funding extreme trans-eliminationist rhetoric: They host Jesse Singal, a high-profile supporter of anti-trans conversion therapy who is also widely known to fixate on and stalk trans women in and around the media industry. I would list Jesse’s targets, but at this point, I don’t know a trans woman in media who doesn’t have a story. Graham Lineham is a transphobic bigot so extreme and abhorrent that he’s been permanently banned from Twitter, Medium, and basically every platform but the one I’m using to talk to you right now. He reportedly considers Substack a major source of income.” -Jude Doyle, a trans author who left Substack (2021)
And if all of that isn’t enough, one of the Substack CEOs posted this blog on January 29, 2025, praising Elon Musk as a supporter of free speech and praising Mark Zuckerberg for the positive changes to Meta’s policies (including allowing hate speech against queer people on Meta sites). “Those who welcome the press freedom changes at Meta owe a debt to those who took a principled stand when the wind was blowing the other way.” -Chris Best (2025)
In conclusion, do not join Substack if you are looking for a site that is more ethical than Twitter or Instagram. Substack is equally as bad or worse. Luckily, if you want to start a newsletter, there are multiple other options, including ones which allow you to gain paid subscribers AND take a smaller cut than Substack does. Three that have risen to the top include Buttondown, Beehiiv, and Ghost. Wired did an article reviewing all three.
Buttondown makes it extremely easy to export all of your archived posts and subscribers from Substack so you don’t lose any followers or writing in a transition from one platform to the other. Buttondown does charge, but if you plan to monetize your blog, they take a smaller cut over time than Substack does. I follow several newsletters that switched from TinyLetter or MailChimp over to Buttondown and as a subscriber, I did not miss a single issue. The one free plan only allows up to 100 subscribers, after which it is $9 per month until 1000 subscribers and then rates increase based on follower count. See the rates generator here.
Beehiiv is also trying to make the transition process easy. Here’s a blog post and a more recent article on how to migrate your subscribers. I don’t personally know anyone who uses this site, but here is a glowing review. Apparently the free plan will allow you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, which is quite generous.
Ghost also has a guide on how to export followers from Substack, as well as from many other sites including Wordpress, Patreon, Mailchimp and more. Ghost charges $9 per month for up to 500 followers for their basic plan, and then rates go up from there based on follower size. See a rates generator here.
And there’s Patreon! Far from perfect, but if you sign up for a new account they take 8% of your subscriber earnings, which is also lower than the 10% Substack takes. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest Patreon if what you really want is a newsletter, but that being said I do use it basically as a newsletter and make the majority of my posts free, like this one.
I know that no internet platform is pure. I know that moving to a new site is a huge hassle. But I am imploring my friends and mutuals not to choose Substack as your new internet home when leaving Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. And if you already have a Substack, please take some time to look at your alternatives. I will leave you with this quote from Imani Gandy: “The reason it's really important to leave Substack NOW is their relatively new social networking features. Substack is creating a walled garden that you have to share with white supremacists. They want to keep you on Substack where all the Nazis are and force you to share your revenue with them.”
If you feel like doing further reading, here are links to posts from writers on why they decided to leave Substack, most of which also say where they ultimately moved to:
baratheonpilled
ellievsbear
titsay
stormborns
