The European Perspective has moved away from Substack.
All new articles are now published on our own website, www.europeanperspective.news.
Why? Because EUROPE.
Substack is an American company. We chose it originally because it was “the place to be” for writers. Not any more.
As alternatives, we have explored Kessel.media (a European commercial alternative to Substack: the place to be for -French- writers), and Ghost (an open-source newsletter platform).
In the end, we decided to run our own website using open-source software (WordPress), managed and hosted in Europe.
If we ever make any money with this newsletter, we want it to stay in Europe. For now, we have proudly paid a small European company to manage our migration away from Substack and set up of the new website, including the newsletter plugin “MailPoet” (they’re Oikos MSP).
Why? Because VALUES.
Substack has a content moderation problem. As they’re so-much-for-profit, they will welcome in their platform outlets that produce hate speech: that put up hate towards people, and hey, it makes money, it shouldn’t be that bad. We don’t want to be in that company. Hate speech should not be under free speech. We don’t want to hang out in a nazi bar.
We’re doing our (very small) part to counter the wave of techno-authoritarianism. The valuable thing is to move away from them: from Twitter, from Meta, from Substack.
We’re following many others who have done it already. In particular, two of them have inspired us:
- Molly White and her [citation needed]. Here’s her detailed explanation of why and how she did it.
Substack’s long history of horrendous decision-making about what kind of content they will not only tolerate but monetize, boost, and even actively court is perfectly sufficient reason alone (to leave).
- FrameLab, by Gil Duran and Dr George Lakoff.
And since Substack charges a 10 percent fee of all subscriptions, it means FrameLab and its readers were paying money to right-wing billionaires with an authoritarian vision for the future.
We hope that many others will follow suit.
Why now? Because TRUMP.
Our move away from Substack has been in the making for months. The new website is up since last April, but something was still not clicking.
The world situation has kicked us in the ass. This is the response: more Europe and more values.
Stay tuned!
You don’t need to take any action to keep on receiving the newsletter. All existing subscribers have been migrated, and all new subscribers are added in the new site.
This newsletter has been silent for some months, but there are two articles ready to be published:
- Europe’s Pioneering Female Roma Filmmakers, by Raluca Besliu
- Russians in the Baltics (European Minorities, Chapter 2), by Alex Hoffman
Welcome to our new home!
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