A Change of Scenery

Happy new year, to all who observe!

For the past few months I have been paying attention to reporting and conversation around Substack’s policies on content moderation for hate speech, genuinely hoping that they would come to the decision that responsible stewardship of community building means making sure community members can feel safe, and that the communities you are enabling the construction of are not subsequently being used to endanger others.

Sadly, Substack has not yet reached this conclusion, and while this newsletter is free and Substack did not receive any direct monetary gain from my writing, it felt kind of icky to be writing about community, care and sustainability on a community building platform that won’t censor white supremacist agitation and neo-Nazi hate speech. So to start the year, I decided to move to Beehiiv, where I am writing you from now. Beehiiv is owned by Google, and Google is not a paradigm of righteous behavior, but no choice I have ever had to make under capitalism is perfect. However, one of the benefits of keeping this newsletter free is that I myself am also free!

I will still occasionally link to my friends’ and colleagues’ newsletters in Substack whenever I want you to see something cool, and will continue to link you to them elsewhere if they move, too. This move is not a moral admonishment of anyone else’s behavior so I hope it won’t be taken that way.

I really appreciate (so much!) each of you that has subscribed, read and recommended over the past to years of this newsletter, and I’m looking forward to delivering you this month’s dispatch. I hope the beginning of this Gregorian calendar year is gentle and kind to you - you deserve it.

Thank you,

Anja