I guess you're right that I'm less upset about pornography because I'm not a consumer of it. But let me give you my best attempt at a principled answer, too..
I'd say that porn producers have lots of places to go that will cater to them, and that will connect them to porn consumers. As I recall, reddit's r/gonewild is huge, and lots of producers are using it to pull people to their OnlyFans accounts. Someone who is "canceled" for porn at Substack could just go there, and they'd probably be better off because they'd be in a community of people who want to consume porn.
On the other hand, an anti-vax writer (or someone who was publishing accurate concerns about the covid vaccines and was labeled "anti-vax") couldn't just go get a job at Fox to continue their activities after Facebook banned them and their web host stopped hosting them, etc.
Bottom line, I think it's reasonable for a "free speech" platform to specialize in certain kinds of unpopular speech so that they don't have to fight every censor-happy asshole at once. One might say "we specialize in hosting porn and fighting Christian censors" and another might say "we specialize in hosting Trumpers and anti-vaxxers and fighting woke censors" and that's perfectly fine. Ideally, there would be enough such platforms in existence that a writer could choose the proper one for the kind of content they plan to create.
>Censorship happens when a writer is de-platformed, and has nowhere to turn to re-platform themselves. People on HN then give snarky, insincere advice about creating your own web hosting company or whatever.
Substack would be a place for profiling what's happening in the sex worker community, providing news and insight and addressing issues important to individuals within the community. r/GoneWild and OnlyFans don't cater to that; they only want you to post your nude content.
So in your follow up example, there is no other platform that would offer the same kind of service and target audience for sex workers that Substack does.
I agree, and my reading of Substack's content guidelines is that this would be allowed. A sex worker could write on Substack about issues important to their community, and then link to their Onlyfans for the porn. That means people who want to avoid the porn could easily do so, and those who want to see it know exactly where to go.
I'd say that porn producers have lots of places to go that will cater to them, and that will connect them to porn consumers. As I recall, reddit's r/gonewild is huge, and lots of producers are using it to pull people to their OnlyFans accounts. Someone who is "canceled" for porn at Substack could just go there, and they'd probably be better off because they'd be in a community of people who want to consume porn.
On the other hand, an anti-vax writer (or someone who was publishing accurate concerns about the covid vaccines and was labeled "anti-vax") couldn't just go get a job at Fox to continue their activities after Facebook banned them and their web host stopped hosting them, etc.
Bottom line, I think it's reasonable for a "free speech" platform to specialize in certain kinds of unpopular speech so that they don't have to fight every censor-happy asshole at once. One might say "we specialize in hosting porn and fighting Christian censors" and another might say "we specialize in hosting Trumpers and anti-vaxxers and fighting woke censors" and that's perfectly fine. Ideally, there would be enough such platforms in existence that a writer could choose the proper one for the kind of content they plan to create.