‘Can we sleep at night?’: Renowned tech journalist explains why he pulled his newsletter publication from X and Substack

Other 27 January, 2024 23:22

Casey Newton won’t compromise on Nazis.

In a world in which it can be difficult to read the moral compass of some legacy news organizations, the renowned technology journalist and founder of the independent digital news outlet Platformer has taken decisive action to ensure his media company lives up to its own stated values and principles — even when such decisions are laced with risk and potential business repercussions.

Over the past several months, Newton has made difficult decisions to sever relationships and move Platformer off both Substack and X, the platform formally known as Twitter. Both companies have declined to engage in basic content moderation, allowing hate and other forms of toxic content to swell on their respective platforms. For Newton, maintaining a presence on both X and Substack violated both his personal and business’ moral constitution.

“A big part of it was can we sleep at night?” Newton rhetorically asked by phone Thursday, noting the decisions were made in conjunction with his managing editor Zoë Schiffer. “Do we feel good about where we are spending our time? Do we feel good about who we are building value for? And in the cases of X and Substack, the answers were no.”

Newton explained that X owner Elon Musk is in “open warfare against journalists on the platform,” adding he “truly had no idea” why any journalist or news organization would choose to contribute to it. In the case of Substack, Newton expressed disappointment that the newsletter publisher had strenuously resisted calls to prohibit “literal 1930s-style Nazis” from building — and monetizing — audiences.

For a journalist whose job it is to call out other companies for maintaining questionable business relationships, Newton said it would have not only been ethically dubious for him to ignore the decisions X and Substack were making, but hypocritical as well.

“I am writing all the time about how companies are failing to live up to their stated values,” Newton told CNN. “And then here I am on these platforms overrun by far-right actors, transphobes, those who traffic in anti-LGBTBQ rhetoric — and so, given a large part about what Platformer is, our readers are going to hold us to a high standard.”

Newton’s moves have caught the eye of the journalistic community for their bold and principled nature. They have also raised questions about whether establishment newsrooms, which have far more scale and resources than independent publishers, should take similar stands and be more judicious about the relationships they maintain. Outside NPR, which stopped posting on X last year, major news organizations have continued publishing their content to Musk’s social platform, despite his open and repugnant anti-press conduct.

Newton said he does have empathy for publishers, both big and small, who “want to rock the boat as little as possible because the economics of the news business are so tough.” As he pointed out, some are just trying to “keep the lights on” and being forced to slash costs. But Newton also made a case for news organizations taking a stand when the values that they profess to uphold fall under attack and are brazenly violated by companies in which they are maintaining a relationship.

“I think it’s good for publishers to be public about their values and then live up to their values,” Newton said, adding that he believes there “is an argument to be made that you can increase trust by telling readers where you as a publisher, draw the line, and then live up to that.”

Sometimes drawing that line might come at an economic cost, Newton acknowledged. Platformer, he said, had benefited from Substack’s recommendation algorithm which suggests its readers subscribe to various other newsletters hosted by the platform. That algorithm engine, Newton added, had accelerated the number of non-paying subscribers to Platformer.

“My expectation is we are going to grow a lot more slowly on the free side this year,” Newton candidly acknowledged. “The flip side of that, from a business perspective, those free users did not monetize … So we are giving up a lot of growth, but I’m not sure we are giving up a lot of paid growth.”

Regardless of any potential business cost, Newton indicated that the decisions to abandon X and Substack were, ultimately, the right calls to make. He joked that his “hope for the rest of 2024 is that we will not be talking about Platformer’s platform of choice.” But he stressed such matters are ones he takes seriously (especially given the name of his company).

“There will be those times that you have to take a stand,” Newton said. “And I think people will remember that.”