Substack adds ‘report’ button to app amid moderation controversies
Newsletter platform Substack now has a “report” button its app, allowing readers to flag posts and publications directly.
The feature has been available on the web version of the platform for the past four months, enabling users to report profiles and “Notes”, Substack’s fairly new replication of Twitter/X posts. The latest update on the app was spotted by Chris Messina, and first reported by The Verge.
Substack is in the midst of controversy, as a flurry of users have left the platform amid accusations of content moderation issues. The platform came under fire for reportedly allowing white supremacist, alt-right, and “explicitly Nazi newsletters” to build a home on its site, according to a November 2023 investigation from The Atlantic. In response, hundreds of Substack publishers wrote an open letter to the company’s leadership.
In the letter, the writers asked of Substack’s team: “Why do you choose to promote and allow the monetization of sites that traffic in white nationalism?”
The “Substackers Against Nazis” campaign cited Mashable’s reporting on a previous exodus of Substack writers, again pointing to the prevalence of bigotry — namely transphobia — on the platform. The letter questioned Substack’s “hands-off approach to content moderation”, writing, “But there’s a difference between a hands-off approach and putting your thumb on the scale. We know you moderate some content, including spam sites and newsletters written by sex workers.”
“Your unwillingness to play by your own rules on this issue has already led to the announced departures of several prominent Substackers,” the letter continued, “including Rusty Foster and Helena Fitzgerald. They follow previous exoduses of writers, including Substack Pro recipient Grace Lavery and Jude Ellison S. Doyle, who left with similar concerns.”
In 2022, Mashable reported on the significant amount of COVID misinformation flourishing on Substack, to which the platform responded, “While we remove content that is illegal, calls for violence, doxxes someone, and other things you can see in our content guidelines, it’s not against the rules to be disagreeable or wrong. This means erring on the side of free press and free expression, even for those we don’t endorse or agree with.”
It appears Substack may be continuing to double down on its policies, despite this new addition of report features and an ongoing discussion between the company’s leadership team and Substack users.
Following the concerns of Nazi content on Substack in 2023, the site’s co-founder Hamish McKenzie wrote a response on Dec. 21, stating, “I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.”