Doodling Data, reloaded - moving to Buttondown
This is the first issue of my newsletter since I migrated it on Buttondown, where I explain the reasons. I’ve migrated all Substack posts and subscribers.
Hey there,
you're getting this because at some point you signed up to Doodling Data on its previous Substack home, which isn't active anymore. I've just migrated it here to Buttondown, so welcome again!
Reason for the move
Quite simply: Substack has openly clarified they won't censor/ban hate speech and I'm not OK with that. Some of you may not be aware of what Substack is or what happened in the recent (prior-to-Christmas) days, so here's a quick recap:
End of Nov. 2023. The Atlantic published "Substack has a Nazi problem": the author found several Substacks (at least some of which paid) spreading racist, hateful, white-suprematist-kinda-thing content. Some have clear Nazi symbols (😮). These are (mercifully) a tiny portion of the world of Substack, but they make noise (and $$, including to Substack itself). However, I bet there are more than just the ones mentioned in the article. Note: the problem isn't new.
Mid Dec 2023. Some Substack writers (including big, notable names) wrote a open letter to the company urging for an explanation.
A few days ago. The company responded, essentially saying that while they don't like Nazis either, they stand for free speech, can't be the referees of who-writes-what, and that suppressing hate speech makes the problem worse (I think that's the weakest of their arguments).
Personally, I am of the opinion that hate speech of all sorts, speech promoting the idea that some types of humans are better, speech that promulgates fake, anti-scientific and/or anti-facts stuff must be banned immediately and put in a condition not to harm society. It's the paradox of tolerance.
Heck, in places like Italy, Germany, Austria (not sure about other countries) using Nazi/Fascist symbols and paraphernalia is a criminal offence, for good reason.
Reactions to Substack's response
There's at least two schools of thought - and this is real free speech in action, a good thing:
Those who think if you tolerate in the name of free speech, you're in error - as per above, I stand with these lot. An excellent piece with a great analogy is "Leaving the Nazi bar" by Ben Werdmuller, who also moved to Buttondown. In the same crowd, I recommend this other piece (on Substack!). Note that this school of thought stresses that this isn't a zero-sum game, because given all this Substack is profiting from hate speech;
Those who think that Substack is right in not taking a stance. The argument goes that in the vast sea of publications hateful ones are just a few and you, the reader, can decide whom to follow in much the same way as for other (online and non) groups; it shouldn't be a platform's role to police content. As I said, the debate is interesting (see comments in the article) but I disagree.
What about this publication
About a year ago, I had chosen Substack because it presented itself as a refreshing place to have both a blog and a newsletter for civil conversations undisturbed by the all-present stream of ads that pollutes most other digital experiences. Naive of me maybe, but I don't regret it - I've had a great time and I've met lots of great publications I will continue to follow nevertheless. And it has allowed me to reach many people with my writing and doodling.
But, like B. Werdmuller above, I have now moved it to Buttondown, an indie newsletter platform created by Justin Duke. It has nice and friendly takes on open source and climate contributions and a minimalistic design I am really a fan of. It publishes a public roadmap (in fact, I am looking forward to some improvements) and is transparent on costs. Plus, I can attest Justin is very responsive and friendly when you have a question!
It is paid (for me, the user) because it has to cover costs of shipping emails, and that's fair. I am more than happy to pay for good software, especially if independent, and I intend to keep my newsletter free to readers, but I may open a Ko-fi page or another possibility for you to contribute to my work in the future.
I will now use this as the newsletter in tandem with my website which will host all posts (and of which you can follow the RSS feed). I still have to migrate some old Substack posts there but bear with me. You can also just follow this newsletter via RSS feed and not email. All old Substack posts are, by the way, on the migrated archive here.
I've brought all of you Substack subscribers here and I hope you stay for the ride, but if you find this annoying, if you had maybe signed up from Substack out of recommendations (a feature I never loved as it encourages "blind" subscriptions) and aren't interested, if you disagree with any of the above... please feel free to unsubscribe, no offence taken; I want this to be valuable, not a burden.
Until next time,
Martina @ Doodling Data