Comment on There is a federation problem on Programming.dev

nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• kogasa@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Content of the image is unrelated to this post FYI

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  • MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It should have been blurred out or redacted, then. Because naturally, people will be more eager to discuss a Nazi problem than some fediverse bug.

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    • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      If I were in a conspiratorial frame of mind, I might think that there are people who are trying to push the "Substack = Nazis" narrative, by spreading it around in contexts where the "official" content of their message is actually something different, which is usually a lot more effective at spreading the gestalt you're trying to spread around than just spamming "Substack = Nazis" everywhere.

      The whole framing of the underlying freakout, that if Substack sent you a push notification about somebody's blog, they're obviously endorsing it, and it's "being pushed algorithmically" by Substack, and look, here's this very visual-picture-friendly juxtaposition of the Nazi logo in a Substack notification, even if the actual accusation is being walked by to "I think they should ban Nazis and this shouldn't even be an issue" (which would be a fair thing to say) and "I'm alarmed that they took VC money from some pretty suspect people at different points in their history" (which would be a fair thing to say).

      But, that's not what they lead with. What they lead with is "don’t take any action" (they did take action), "'oops, all nazis' notifications issue" (not even sure what that means, but Substack is overwhelmingly leftist obviously, not "oops all nazis")... you get the idea. There's some other innuendo stuff in there, implying that "free speech" is just a cover because Substack loves Nazis so much that they're hosting a ton of solid left-wing journalists and providing them funding, just so they can have a handy excuse to host this one Nazi blog with 768 followers, which is the real goal.

      Ask me if I'm salty about this whole conversation lol

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy (I just learned about this one and since then I've been seeing it everywhere; Lemmy people love to do it it seems like)

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      • MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Honestly, “OP did this on purpose” is an entirely reasonable stance on the issue. And either way, the blame might also fall on the instance moderators for allowing it (are there rules about off-topic posts? I’m too tired to check)

        And yeah, you’re definitely right to be salty about this. The Internet is where nuance goes to be stabbed to death in a back alley.

        As for the Substack discourse, I guess that Substack is at the very least being naive about the whole thing? Idk. I’m tired of all of this Intenet discourse and having a new hot topic issue every goddamn day.

        All I know is that if a platform sent me a notification about an openly Nazi blog, swastika and all, I would have some second thoughts about using it.

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• PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This is of a piece with "Mamdani isn't left wing enough for me" / "AOC supports genocide" / Bernie is a Zionist" kind of glib one-liner reasons why left-wing people need to stop supporting left-wing things, because they're not really virtuous enough, and so we need to abandon them in pursuit of some kind of imaginary virtue solution instead of just having unity.

  TL;DR: They took some funding from Marc Andresson long ago, they were willing to give blogs to everyone including Nazis (bc free speech) and the whole internet yelled at them, so they caved and removed the Nazis. IDK how this particular push notification happened, but I would bet that the blog will be removed. They are not wholly ideologically pure, I think Richard Spenser is the worst person they willingly host and he's pretty bad, but they don't allow Nazis anymore specifically because of the hue and cry it raised up the first time.

  More conversation about it here, I don't have the patience right now to write up a full explanation. TL;DR someone who's panicked at you about the Substack Nazi problem is listening to something that's mostly designed to hurt a mostly left-wing platform.

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  • rainwall@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Your link is to your older comments, and claims they "kicked out the nazis" they had on their platform.

    This current issue is about their systems pushing racist notification from the nazis currently on their platform to users. The article also points out that one of the other nazis accounts is being pushed algorithmically to users, seperate from their "oops, all nazis" notifications issue. How is substack not a nazi platform when its still promoting and platforming nazis?

    Also, they just took more funding from Marc Andeerssen in theit most recent funding round, so your TL;DR is also all fucked up.

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    • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Are you under the impression that a person at Substack manually reviews every notification about every newsletter that gets sent out? It would be surprising to me if that was how it worked.

      The URL has a "1" at the end, which usually means someone lost their account the first time and is now making a new one. I can't really make sense of how old the "1" version of the account is or if there used to be one without it. The blog hasn't been deleted yet, which sure isn't great, but I'm fairly sure that the people at Substack didn't make this blog or deliberately take pains to make sure it exists in any way.

      I mean, you do understand that when I get a gmail notification about herbal Viagra, that doesn't mean Google has gone into the herbal supplements business, right? And in general how platforms generally work? As I understand it (and tell me if I'm wrong), their currently policy is to ban Nazis and this one should be gone soon. Maybe I'm wrong, I'll check back in a couple days and see what happened with it.

      Honestly, it makes infinitely more sense to think that this is a fuck-up that is being spun to sound like a deliberate decision by internet trolls, than to think that Substack has decided to start sending literal Nazi propaganda to their users on purpose.

      Also, they just took more funding from Marc Andeerssen in their most recent $100 million funding round 13 days ago, so your TL;DR is also all fucked up.

      I mean, not from him personally, any more than they did from Kim Kardashian or Skims, the apparel company. I do agree that lots of VC money flooding in is a significant problem, just because it's usually (almost always) a corrupting influence in the long run. That doesn't mean that "Substack has a Nazi problem" all of a sudden becomes validated.

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      • rainwall@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Comparing a platform internal push alert system with a random spam email is asinine. This was the companies own system pushing nazi content they host to users, all with their own tools.

        I have no idea what youre on about with the URL, but i absolutely accept that their notification system fucked up and mass spammed users with literal Nazi content they actively host on their platform. Machines break, computers are no exception.

        The "actively hosting Nazi content" is the issue. Not actively hosting nazis is actually a stunning good way to prevent your internal tooling from spaming random customers of yours with Nazi content. Its nearly flawless. The fact that Substack does not employ it is the issue.

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  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    A nuanced take in response to casually lobbed accusations of Nazism? How come you haven’t been banned?

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    • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      !fediverse@lemmy.world hasn't yet succumbed to the international shittymod conspiracy. Give it time, I'm sure once they secure their hold over dbzer0, they'll get to work on some of the medium-sized LW communities, and start booting out defenses of Substack because of "trolling" or something.

      (I am joking. I think. Maybe not.)

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  • Skiluros@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    For me personally, the A16Z investment is a much bigger issue than the Nazi blogs. From my perspective, it means the management is comfortable working with criminals (pump and dump and pyramid schemes haven’t yet been made legal in the US, have they?).

    Performative claims of support for “free speech” is pretty standard stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a part of the go-to-market strategy (it would be funny if they created the Nazis blog themselves to stir things up).

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    • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      (it would be funny if they created the Nazis blog themselves to stir things up).

      Jesus Christ, see this is what I was talking about. You're making up nonsense. What they actually did was invested a bunch of money in paying actual journalism people to do actual journalism things, and then create a new way of doing things that invited a ton of qualified mostly leftist journalists to do real journalism on a platform that's a little closer to how people actually consume media now, and get paid for it, and in a sustainable fashion now that all the previous media empires are either crashing down or getting replaced with explicit propaganda.

      That's where some of that A16Z money went: To journalists (some of it literally and directly, to get the ball rolling). That's why there are all these people like Robert Reich and Tim Snyder on Substack right now, doing journalism and getting paid for it. It's a good thing.

      Of course, it's super easy to pretend they created a bunch of Nazi blogs instead. They didn't do that, but "it would be funny" is easy to say. Man, get lost.

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      • Skiluros@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I am not American (although I have lived there, and have traced extensively and have many good friends); I did not find American polemics around freedom of speech to be in the least convincing.

        Absent convincing evidence to the contrary, it is reasonable to be sceptical of Substack’s claims. People in other countries get severally beaten up (or even killed) in an attempt to do real journalism - that is a commitment to free speech. Not some drama about blog hosting.

        I do have some exposure to silicon valley go-to-market strategies. It is not at all “nonsense” to speculate that in theory a startup could engage in a guerrilla marketing (especially using free speech copytext, which is extremely fashionable among their target market).

        Where did I make any claims about how the A16Z money was used? Sure, it likely was used to fund journalists on the platform, including people who do good work. It is a good thing that they are getting paid.

        I think you misunderstand my worldview, I have nothing particularly against substack.

        I just don’t buy the colourful story about “commitment to free speech” and the uncritical view of the A16Z investment.

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  • nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Honestly, thanks for updating my knowledge.

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• Kirk@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  What’s going on? Why does this offtopic comment have 14 upvotes and no upvotes?

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  • PhilipTheBucket@quokk.au ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There's a good bit of fake voting on Lemmy, but after a quick glance at the votes I don't think this is that, I think it's just people legitimately believing the narrative that "Substack = Nazis" and upvoting it because they believe in it.

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    • dickalan@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Careful the person above you may have been referencing the 14 words

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  • MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    IDK, missing (or deliberately ignoring) context is also a deeply human issue. Don’t act like you captcha-pressers are any better than us in that matter.

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