Ep. 166 Substack, a platform for free speech?

Substack — the popular newsletter and publishing service — has
made a name for itself by swimming against the current: As many
technology companies devise new ways to censor or moderate
content on their platforms, Substack made free speech one of its
core values and, in doing so, has attracted bloggers and
journalists from across the political spectrum.


“While we have content guidelines that allow us to protect the
platform at the extremes, we will always view censorship as a
last resort, because we believe open discourse is better for
writers and better for society,” proclaimed Substack’s founders.


Lulu Cheng Meservey is Vice President of Communications for
Substack. She went viral earlier this year when she tweeted about
why free expression is an important principle for Substack. She
joins us this week to discuss Substack, free speech, and the new
media ecosystem.


Show notes:


Transcript

Lulu’s viral tweet thread

“Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make
it worse.” by Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj Sethi

Substack’s “Content Guidelines”

Substackers mentioned: Andrew Sullivan, Casey Newton,
The Fifth Column, Patti Smith, George Saunders, Salman Rushdie,
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Freddie deBoer, Nikita Petrov,

Blocked and Reported

John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty”



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