I Refuse to Call Hate an “Opinion”
I believe deeply in the power of independent storytelling.
As a queer trans man, coming out coach, podcaster and political educator, I know what it means to finally find the words for your own life. I know how powerful it can be to tell your story without waiting for a newspaper, institution or gatekeeper to decide that you are credible enough to be heard.
That is why platforms like Substack are so appealing.
They let writers speak directly to readers. They let marginalized people build community outside institutions that have historically ignored, misunderstood or tokenized us. They give independent journalists a way to keep working while traditional media continues to collapse around them.
I used Substack. I understand what it offers.
That is also why its white-supremacy problem cannot be brushed aside.
This is not a debate about whether someone has been unfairly labelled a Nazi for holding an unpopular conservative opinion. Investigations have found publications displaying swastikas, praising Adolf Hitler, denying the Holocaust, promoting white ethnostates and describing themselves as National Socialist or white nationalist.
These are not vague political disagreements. They are Nazis.
And Substack is not simply allowing them to speak. It is helping some of them build audiences, collect subscription payments and connect with other white supremacists.
What Substack is allowing
In 2023, journalist Jonathan M. Katz identified at least 16 Substack publications displaying overt Nazi symbols, along with scores of white-supremacist, neo-Confederate and far-right extremist newsletters.
Some had thousands of subscribers. Some offered paid subscriptions. Some had received Substack “bestseller” badges.
That is the key concern, because Substack takes 10 per cent of paid subscription revenue. When a reader pays for a white-nationalist newsletter, the writer makes money and Substack makes money too.
After nearly 250 writers demanded answers, Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie said the company would not generally remove or demonetize Nazi publications. He argued that censorship could make extremism worse and that bad ideas should be defeated through open debate.
Substack eventually removed five small Nazi publications that it concluded had crossed its line against inciting violence. But it did not change its policies or commit to proactively finding similar content.
Then, in July 2025, Substack sent push notifications promoting a Nazi newsletter with a swastika as its logo. The company apologized and called it a serious error.
In February 2026, The Guardian found that same publication still operating, now reportedly with 2,800 subscribers and an $80 annual subscription option.
Within two hours of subscribing to it, The Guardian’s test account was directed to 21 similar extremist profiles.
That is not simply freedom of speech. That is distribution.
Substack is not a neutral technology
Substack’s defence rests on the idea that it is simply a tool. Writers publish. Readers choose what to read. Everyone moderates their own little corner of the internet.
That might have been easier to argue when Substack was primarily an email-delivery service.
But that is not what Substack is anymore.
It has a social feed. It has Notes. It has recommendations, rankings, notifications, leaderboards, badges, onboarding suggestions and an app designed to help people discover new publications.
Substack itself has described the app as its most powerful growth machine. The company has reported that its recommendation network and app generate millions of new subscriptions.
When those systems work well, they help wonderful independent writers find readers.
When those systems connect white supremacists to one another, they help build an extremist media network.
A company cannot build an algorithm designed to grow audiences and then claim no responsibility for whose audiences it grows.
This is not only about antisemitism
White supremacy is not one isolated form of hatred.
It is a system for deciding whose humanity counts, who belongs and who must be controlled, removed or erased.
Historically, Nazi ideology targeted Jewish people, Roma people, disabled people, queer and trans people, racialized communities, political dissidents and anyone who disrupted its fantasy of a pure and obedient society.
Modern white-supremacist movements continue to build alliances through antisemitism, racism, anti-immigrant conspiracy theories, misogyny, ableism and anti-LGBTQ+ politics.
The targets may shift depending on the audience, but the underlying story remains the same:
There is a natural social order. Some people are meant to rule. Others are dangerous, corrupting or less human.
As a trans man, I know this story.
I hear it when people say queer and trans people are contaminating children.
I hear it when immigrants are described as an invasion.
I hear it when Indigenous sovereignty is treated as an obstacle to Canadian progress.
I hear it when Jewish people are blamed for controlling governments, media or social movements.
I hear it whenever someone takes a complicated social problem and turns a marginalized group into the enemy.
These ideas do not remain neatly separated inside individual newsletters. They travel. They reinforce one another. They teach people to see their neighbours as threats.
“Just block them” is not an answer
Substack says readers can curate their own experience. If you do not want to see a Nazi, you can block one.
But blocking protects an individual screen. It does not stop Substack from processing payments, recommending publications or helping extremists find each other.
It also places the burden on the people being targeted.
Jewish people must avoid the Holocaust deniers.
Black and racialized people must avoid the white nationalists.
Queer and trans people must avoid the people debating whether we should exist in public.
Disabled people must avoid movements built around eugenics and biological hierarchy.
Meanwhile, the people spreading those ideas are allowed to keep building their audiences.
That is not neutral. It is a choice about who must carry the cost of the platform’s policies.
This does not mean every Substack writer supports white supremacy
I want to be careful here.
Millions of people use Substack. Most are not extremists. Many are brilliant journalists, artists, historians, organizers and educators. Marginalized writers have used the platform to speak honestly about race, disability, gender, sexuality and oppression without needing permission from traditional media institutions.
Publishing on Substack does not make someone a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer.
I do not believe in replacing meaningful accountability with purity tests. I am not interested in turning this into another circular firing squad where people doing good work are attacked for failing to make the perfect ethical choice inside an internet largely owned by powerful corporations.
People need tools to survive. Writers need audiences. Independent journalists need income.
But there is a difference between refusing purity politics and refusing to acknowledge harm.
We can recognize what Substack offers while demanding that the company stop helping white supremacists grow.
Free speech does not require marketing
Removing Nazis from a platform will not make Nazism disappear.
People who hold these beliefs may move somewhere else. Some may retreat into smaller, more radical spaces. Moderation is complicated, and careless content rules can absolutely be weaponized against marginalized people.
But research consistently shows that deplatforming can reduce an extremist’s reach, disrupt recruitment and make it harder to access mainstream audiences.
That is important.
White supremacists do not only want the abstract freedom to speak. They want legitimacy. They want payment systems. They want recommendation engines. They want attractive publishing tools. They want access to people who were not already looking for them.
They want the appearance of being one respectable perspective among many.
Free expression does not require Substack to recommend their newsletters.
Civil liberties do not require a bestseller badge.
Open debate does not require a company to take a percentage of Holocaust-denial subscriptions.
The refusal to normalize hate
As a coming out coach, I talk a lot about what happens when we stop shrinking ourselves to protect other people’s comfort.
Coming out is not only about announcing your gender or sexuality. It is about becoming honest about what you see, what you believe and what you are no longer willing to pretend is acceptable.
Sometimes that means naming a system that has helped us while also naming the harm it is causing.
Sometimes it means refusing the comforting idea that technology is neutral.
Sometimes it means saying that white supremacy is not an intellectual curiosity to be defeated through a friendly debate. It is an organizing project built around stripping other people of dignity, rights, safety and belonging.
We should not blame every writer trying to make a living on Substack.
But we should demand more from the company profiting from all of us.
Because a platform cannot claim to be building a better future for writers while helping Nazis build one for themselves.
And none of us should have to quietly share the room while they do it.
