This week, some Substack users woke up to something nobody expects on their phone: push notifications featuring actual swastikas, courtesy of the platform's recommendation algorithm promoting a Nazi newsletter called "NatSocToday."
I had to double-check the date when I saw Taylor Lorenz's report. July 2025? We're still doing this?
Back in February of 2024, I packed up ADLINGO and moved to Ghost after Substack's first Nazi content crisis (circa late 2023). Watching this week's swastika notification debacle unfold, I'm having one of those rare moments where a past decision feels absolutely validated.
Not vindicated. Validated.
I take no joy in watching a platform I once enjoyed continue its slide into extremist-friendly territory.
The incident that surprised nobody
On July 28, Substack's push notification system decided to promote "NatSocToday" to an unknown number of users. This wasn't buried content you'd have to search for. This was the platform actively pushing a newsletter that features a swastika logo and describes itself as serving "the National Socialist and White Nationalist Community."
Users reported literal Nazi symbols popping up on their lock screens.
The newsletter in question has about 750 subscribers and publishes gems like "Jewish people are a sickness" alongside Holocaust denial and calls for a white-only America. Clicking through led users down an algorithmic rabbit hole, with Substack immediately recommending "White Rabbit," another white nationalist publication with 8,600 subscribers.
Substack's response? They called it a "serious error" and apologized for the "distress." No mention of why Nazi content exists on their platform at all. Just bs about taking systems offline and preventing future occurrences.
Why I left
Rewind to late 2023. The Atlantic's Jonathan Katz found at least 16 Substack newsletters displaying Nazi symbols, complete with actual swastikas and sonnenrads. Many were monetized through paid subscriptions.
That's when I made the call to migrate ADLINGO to Ghost. It wasn't easy. Substack's discovery tools are superior in many ways. These features drive real subscriber growth. The monetization is seamless. But here's what I realized. Every subscriber I gained made me complicit in funding a company that profits from Nazi content.
The decision got clearer when co-founder Hamish McKenzie defended hosting Nazis with this gem:
"We don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse."
Cool story, Hamish. You know what actually makes Nazi problems worse? Giving them infrastructure, payment processing, and algorithmic amplification.
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The cost of principles in the creator economy
Moving off Substack hurt. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. The platform genuinely helps creators grow an audience. Their recommendation engine works. The reading experience is clean enough. The payment infrastructure just works.
However, what's the point of building an audience if the platform you're building on actively promotes Nazi content? Every time I'd publish, I'd wonder if my work was sitting in someone's inbox next to Holocaust denial.
So I moved to Ghost. Yes, it required more technical setup. No, it doesn't have the same built-in discovery. But you know what else it doesn't have? An algorithm that might randomly decide to push Nazi newsletters to my readers' phones.
The same logic drove my Twitter exodus to Bluesky. When your business model depends on "engagement" above all else, you inevitably platform the worst actors because outrage drives clicks. I got tired of my work existing in the same ecosystem as coordinated harassment campaigns and Nazi reply guys.
I'm done
The hardest decision wasn't moving ADLINGO because there are great platform alternatives. It was unsubscribing from every Substack newsletter I read.
There were writers I genuinely loved, voices I looked forward to hearing from each week. Clicking unsubscribe felt like punishment for their choice of platform.
But I couldn't square it anymore. Every subscription funded Substack's infrastructure. Every open rate boosted metrics that helped them raise another $100 million at a $1.1 billion valuation.
Some writers I followed made the jump too. Casey Newton took Platformer and its 170,000 subscribers to Ghost after calling out Substack's Nazi problem. He revisited his decision again this week in light of the most recent news. Others stayed, arguing the tools were too good to leave or that individual creators shouldn't be punished for platform decisions.
This week's irony? Taylor Lorenz's User Mag, the very publication that broke this story about Nazi push notifications, is itself on Substack. I unsubscribed from it just like everything else.
Platform lock-in is real. I get it. But at some point, we have to make the hard call. We need to decide what kind of internet we want to build.
Where the "free speech" argument falls apart
Every time this comes up, someone invokes "free speech" like it's a spell that ends all debate. So let's be clear about what's actually happening here.
Substack isn't just hosting content. They're:
- Processing payments
- Taking a 10% cut of subscription revenue
- Building recommendation algorithms that surfaced extremist content
- Sending push notifications with swastika imagery to users' phones
That's active participation. When your algorithm decides to push Nazi content to users who didn't ask for it, you've crossed the line from platform to publisher.
The "free speech" crowd loves to warn about slippery slopes. You know what's actually slippery? The slope from "we host all legal content" to "our algorithm is pushing swastikas to your phone."
What comes next
This week's incident won't kill Substack. They'll weather this storm like they weathered the last one. Writers who've built audiences won't want to start over. Investors will point to growth metrics. The platform will continue its strange evolution into a place where thoughtful newsletters coexist with Nazi propaganda.
But for those of us who've already left...this week felt like confirmation.
Every platform makes choices about what to platform and how. Substack chose to be a place where this kind of content doesn't just exist but can get algorithmically promoted to unsuspecting users.
I chose not to be part of that ecosystem. I chose to rebuild on platforms that draw actual lines about extremist content. It cost me subscribers and convenience, but I can publish without wondering if my work is funding hate infrastructure.
The lesson for creators
Platform choices are values choices. Where you build your audience says something about what you're willing to tolerate. Where you spend your subscription dollars votes for the kind of internet you want.
Substack will frame this as another technical glitch, a one-off error in their notification system. But when your platform keeps having "accidents" that promote this sort of content, maybe the problem isn't technical. Maybe the problem is that you've built a system where this was always inevitable.
For creators still on Substack, I'm not here to shame you. Building an audience is hard. Starting over is harder. But maybe ask yourself what it'll take for you to hit your limit. If push notifications with swastikas isn't it, what is?
For everyone else? Vote with your dollars. Every subscription to a Substack newsletter funds this problematic infrastructure. Every open helps raise their next round of funding. Why not support writers directly through other platforms?
I'm still following as many of my previous Substack writers as I can through sites like Bluesky and Patreon. Hopefully, they make the very easy transition to a new CMS.
The internet we get is the internet we deserve. It is the one that gets funded. I'm done funding platforms that can't figure out why serving swastikas to users' phones is a problem they shouldn't have in the first place.
