I look up from reading my book and...

...see that Substack is shrugging its shoulders at extreme content and so making continuing here a moral struggle

I won’t attempt to address in any detail the recent debates here on Substack after it was revealed that the platform is hosting extreme right-wing voices. No, let’s not beat about the bush, hosting actual Nazis complete with Hitler fan-pics, swastikas and “kill all the Jews/Blacks/Gays” type slogans, from what I understand.

And when challenged on this, the proprietors of Substack seem to be saying “Yeah, but we make money from them so we’re going to let them stay.”

This post by Eric Matthes is a very good summary of the situation.

A number of my favourite writers here have already left, are leaving, or flagging that they intend to leave unless the Substack management changes tack.

Much more articulate people than myself have discussed the pros and cons of staying. Such as Molly White, Catherynne M. Valente, and many others.

Anyway, this is to alert my readers that I too am considering leaving Substack.

If I do leave, don’t worry, if you are subscribed here I’ll take my mailing list with me and you will still receive an email when I post new issues. And I’ll take the archive of my past posts as well. But the newsletter itself would be hosted elsewhere.

If I do go, I’m thinking of trying to avoid all (or almost all) dependency on third parties by hosting my content on my own website, just as static HTML pages (remember them?). The work to set that up is not simple, but I should be ready in the next couple of weeks.

I’ll let you know.