> I think our understanding of the world is so far apart that it'll be hard to make progress here. It's like asking me "why is it reasonable to assume that the purpose of the printing press is for the dissemination of views". I don't even know where to begin answering that because I can't comprehend the worldview that would lead up to asking it.

Sorry, I was just too vague with my first question. A newsletter can be used for broadcasting political views. But it doesn't have to be used for broadcasting all political views, and can be used to broadcast views that aren't directly related to politics. A newsletter can broadcast only views the owners of the service tolerate (not necessarily want) on the site. It's not reasonable to assume that Substack is a place for all political views, and Substack is fully in the right to ban certain ones without banning others. I bring this up due to my personal speculation: Substack decided not to remove articles openly advocating Nazi beliefs, but had Substack gone the other way then a loud subset of anti-censorship believers would paint the opposite decision - to remove such articles - as "giving in to the mob" (or less likely, giving in to nonexistent coercion from a government) rather than as an equally voluntary, valid, and democracy-compatible decision.

> Spam isn't newsletters, so that seems like a non sequitur.

You're right. Spam was a terrible example. A better example would've been articles advocating something extreme such as complete destruction of Ukraine. Or a topic on a different axis, such as advocacy of sexual gratification (which Substack does ban).

> Newsletters are meant to go to people who signed up for them.

The Substack moderation controversy is not about who gets newsletters. It's about authors on Substack who don't want to associate with certain beliefs posted by other authors. (In this context, spam was relevant if only tangentially; I wouldn't want to write a newsletter using a platform too notorious for user-generated spam newsletters. Nonetheless, I was wrong to use spam as an example.)

> In less civilized societies than the USA the government thinks it's smarter than the populace, and should control their information. History shows us that governments which smash up the printing presses were rarely smart.

Agreed. What bothers me about the Substack controversy is that people are emphasizing the government in the conversation even though the critics of Substack's moderation policy aren't trying to make the government do anything and aren't forcing Substack's hand. Just because the complainers are forceful in their language doesn't mean they are coercing Substack into agreeing with them (unless someone's been Machiavellian enough to doxx Substack employees or threaten the employees' safety; even then, guilt generally wouldn't apply to the entire mob). An online mob is part of the populace just as people who oppose the mob are. Non-governmental requests to moderate in a certain way are equally democratic as non-governmental requests not to moderate in that way as long as Substack gets to make the final decisions. Boycotting is not coercion and is democratic. Advocacy of boycotting are not coercion and are democratic. Criticism of boycotting is not coercion and is democratic. Doxxing is coercion. Threats to personal safety are coercion. The mob did not control Substack's decision here. This would be true even if Substack had decided to agree with the mob's moderation policies.