The publishing platform Substack is generating revenue from newsletters that promote Nazi ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism, a Guardian investigation has found. The company, which says it has about 50 million users worldwide, takes a 10% cut of subscription revenues. Approximately 5 million people pay for access to newsletters on the platform.
Among the offending newsletters is NatSocToday, run by a US-based far-right activist, which has 2,800 subscribers and charges $80 a year. It uses a swastika as its profile picture and has posted content blaming the Jewish race for the second world war and describing Adolf Hitler as one of the greatest men of all time. Shortly after subscribing for the investigation, Substack's algorithm directed the account to 21 other similar profiles.
Other accounts include Erika Drexler, who calls Hitler her hero and charges $150 a year, and Ava Wolfe, a UK-based account with 3,000 subscribers that promotes Holocaust denial. Wolfe recently falsely claimed that no one was deliberately murdered by Germans and that deaths were due to disease and starvation only. Another account, Third Reich Literature Archive, shares Nazi propaganda postcards and charges $80 a year.
The investigation also found promotion of the "great replacement" conspiracy theory. This content appears amid a sharp rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia since the Israel-Gaza war began in October 2023. Attacks include a synagogue shooting in Manchester and a shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney.
Danny Stone, chief executive of the Antisemitism Policy Trust, said harmful online content can inspire real-life attacks, citing massacres in Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Finsbury Park. He criticised the Online Safety Act for focusing on illegal content while neglecting "legal but harmful" material and expressed concern about Holocaust disinformation.
