The Cost of Nazi Platforms
On Substack and the Future of La Cuenta
Over the past few weeks, Substack’s leadership has made it clear that pro-Nazi content and overt white supremacy is welcomed on this platform. We are not referring to right wing content that we might simply disagree with. Rather, reporting makes clear that, unlike every other mainstream social media platform, Substack welcomes modern-day Nazism to roost on its servers.
Reporting from Platformer, the Atlantic, and myriad open letters have explained why many accounts on Substack are migrating elsewhere. It’s a journey of harbor, refuge, and protest of which La Cuenta is all too familiar.
Because our editorial team knows too well the double-edged sword of moving from one threatening land to another, we are deciding our next steps carefully. We have discussed various alternatives to Substack. This conversation is about where our community will live and grow in the future. (This is not an overnight decision, and we welcome your thoughts about this as well.)
Regardless of if (and when) La Cuenta moves to a new space, we remain skeptical that online spaces can remain separate from the “real” world exploitation and violence the undocumented community encounters every day. As a publication dedicated to naming the costs of undocumented survival, we know something about inhabiting space amongst people who actively wish to do us harm.
As a publication dedicated to naming the costs of undocumented survival, we know something about inhabiting space amongst people who actively wish to do us harm.
Unlike the many well-intentioned platforms that are moving their audiences away from the profiting pockets of Substack, we have had no choice in the real world but to persist within the spaces that actively revile us. Being digital neighbors with literal Nazis is not all that different from whom we interact with in the “real” world today. This, of course, does not excuse the poor leadership and policymaking of Substack that make active and dangerous content permissible. Through social recommendation tools like Notes, Substack’s design will help grow the readership around ideas that work at odds with our safety and liberation.
And so, while we continue to deliberate the long-term future of La Cuenta, we see this moment as an opportunity to remind readers and contributors that our day-to-day survival practices and thriving necessitate working within white supremacist spaces. We’ve come to know a basic truth about living within these colonized United States: making welcome Nazis and white supremacists both offline and on, too often that’s a feature not a flaw of social infrastructure.
We see this moment as an opportunity to remind readers and contributors that our day-to-day survival practices and thriving necessitate working within white supremacist spaces.
In his 2017 book, A Third University is Possible, la paperson describes that within the colonial systems of schooling, resistant forces are always present. We are there: “a decolonizing ghost in the colonizing machine.” In the same spirit as la paperson’s words of “scyborg” solidarity, we hold physical and virtual space defiantly and unapologetically.
Propina
This weekend is the 4th Annual UndocuProfessionals Conference.
We are excited to be a part of an amazing group of presenters. For those of you attending, consider coming to our ~highly attended!~ workshop on professional writing
Over the course of 90 minutes, we’ll help attendees develop specific writing ideas, create story pitches, and talk through the ins and outs of the professional writing world, based on some of our own experiences.
If you are not at this weekend’s conference but are interested in hosting a similar workshop like this for your class, community, or organization, please get in touch.
We’ll see you next week!