The Savagery Directed at Golriz

New Zealand has an amazing ability to drop the mask, and its not very pleasant underneath.

Hi,

I just got my New Zealand passport back, complete with a brand new work visa for three years. I’ll be winging my way back to the chaos of America on Sunday afternoon.

As I wrote last week on Webworm, my trip to the US consulate had been a very official and stuffy affair.

The last step of the process was to pick up my new passport from the US consulate’s pick up location. My lawyer had written me a rather mysterious email, telling me that previous clients had told her “the signage is not great” and “the office looks from the outside to be a residential location.”

They had not been exaggerating. I collected my passport from someone’s house, complete with a wheelie bin outside.

New Zealand.

It’s such a beautiful, odd place, New Zealand. The last few days have reminded me of the beauty —

— but also of the side I don’t enjoy so much: When the mask drops, and the savageness emerges.

The main news story here this week is Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman being accused of multiple accounts of shoplifting. Yesterday, Ghahraman resigned. It’s a big news story here, as it would be if any MP was caught shoplifting. These are elected officials, and we have to hold them to account.

But New Zealand is covering it like they’ve caught a serial killer. Our biggest website, Stuff, is soaking in it:

The site ran a live blog all about it: 4.57pm — police visit home of Golriz. Other media publishes pictures of police at her front door.

With the entire country laser focussed on this one woman, this woman who allegedly took some fancy clothes, the online discourse set in with a level of savagery only reserved for certain people. It was full of a level of sexist and racist vitriol that New Zealand is very, very good at.

Ghahraman has faced this her entire political career.

Former Green Party MP, Gareth Hughes, says people would be horrified to know the details of abusive messages Golriz Ghahraman receives. “I’ve seen the messages that Golriz has received on social media platforms, and it would disgust you. It would horrify you. I wouldn’t wish those comments on my worst enemy.”

As she resigned yesterday, Ghahraman hinted that perhaps it had all become too much. Self destructive behaviour ensued.

In a statement, Ghahraman said stress relating to her work had led her to “act in ways that are completely out of character. I am not trying to excuse my actions, but I do want to explain them”.

Golriz Ghahraman (source: greens.org.nz)

I can’t help but think of the recent treatment of other New Zealand politicians, like Kiri Allan and Tory Whanau. As reported by Hayden Donnell, Tory Whanau’s trial by media came to a head when she had a drunken night out. She admitted it, and she apologised for it.

But suddenly the media was talking about a horrific video showing her doing horrific things. The slight issue was that not a single person had actually seen any video.

“In all likelihood, the footage is an invention of the political rumour mill, amplified and reinforced in the Ku Klux Klanrooms of Telegram and the fevered cauldrons of prejudice and delusion which Elon Musk has lovingly fostered on ex-Twitter.”

Politicians all get a hard time — but dear God, if you’re a female politician — you’re treated to a particular kind of savagery here. If you’re a woman of colour, then it’s just amplified.

Broadcasters like Sean Plunket emerge, having truly hood-off moments:

I made the mistake of going on Twitter — the hell platform — to make my point. I regret it in a way, both because I misspelt “politicians” in my haste and because replies were pretty horrible.

All over social media, sexual and racial slurs are being directed with venom. It’s not about allegations of theft. It’s about a deep, deep hatred. I won’t print most of the things being said about Golriz (and those other women) because the comments are defamatory, awful and vile.

Other comments are just what you expect — the anti-vax, anti-trans goblins conjured like magic:

Nick Mowbray, the New Zealander behind billion dollar toy company Zuru (who used his millions to go after former employees who left negative reviews on Glassdoor) stopped by in my comments.

He told me I am “seriously delusional.”

New Zealand.

---

If you want to contact me about any tips or ideas, I am always davidfarrier@protonmail.com

If you like what I do here, you can subscribe to Webworm as either a free or paid member. Paid members keep this thing ticking.

Only pay for Webworm if it causes you zero financial hardship.

---

An Update On Substack

Earlier this week I asked for your feedback on whether I keep using Substack to power Webworm, after Substack’s “nazi issue” came to light. As expected, your feedback was passionate, insightful, well-reasoned and polite.

Not everyone had the same take on things, but as with all discussion here on Webworm it was a delight, sane read. If you have time, the 300+ comments are worth browsing. I am reading and re-reading. Feel free to weigh in.

If you don’t have time to do that, the feedback so far has landed in one of three main camps.

1. David, you should make a stand and stay at Substack.

Lots of Webworm readers thought it best to stand my ground here at Substack. They hate Nazis as much as I do, but thought I should hold my ground and push the founders of Substack to do better.

Mac:

“I don’t want substack to endorse Nazis, but I also don't think the pattern of everyone bailing on platforms when this problem inevitably comes up is working either.

To borrow your Nazi bar analogy: The bartender may not be willing or able to kick the Nazis out, but the other patrons could find ways to make it an inhospitable environment.

It feels like a lot gets lost when people wholesale abandon platforms because we’re still in the process of figuring out how to stamp out those jerks in digital social spaces. It feels important to stick around and fight it out, if this is a platform people care about.”

Kath:

I’m so tired of being pushed off platforms by disgusting people who advocate for the erasure and harm of other people. I'm so tired of having to be the one that leaves the bar, only to have them follow me to the next damn bar and take that over too. It’s a tool for silencing us, thinning us down repeatedly as we search for each other on new platforms and get dispersed around the internet. They know what they are doing.”

A:

“I’m relieved Substack has removed the Nazi content, as they should have. At least they didn’t dig their heels in and do nothing. If all the non-Nazi Substack writers leave, and there was nothing on here but that vile vomit, then Substack becomes the Nazi bar.”

Dee:

“The Nazis could end up wherever this goes to next, even if they aren’t there now. If we keep running away from them and letting them take over ‘our bars’ then they totally win. We need to stand together and kick them out, make them know they aren't welcome, put more pressure on the platform to kick them out so we can reclaim our safe space without them.”

2. I don’t mind what you do, I’m here for Webworm so as long as Webworm exists I back whatever you do.

A lot of Worms don’t really care much about Substack, as they don’t really use anything else on the platform. So as long Webworm keeps being sent, from Substack or somewhere else, they trust whatever decision I come to (this is very trusting, thank you!)

Julia:

“I’ll go wherever you go. There’s trash everywhere. It’s your newsletter, you should be comfortable with where it's hosted. I really appreciate you asking the community but, despite being an elder millennial sometimes grumpy about learning new platforms, I’ll figure out any new situation. You figure out what feels good, honest, and true for you.”

A:

“Substack is a clean, streamlined platform from a reader perspective, but I’m in no way married to it. I’ll follow Webworm wherever it goes, and I trust your judgement as a journalist and as a human in making sure it’s in the right place.”

Sandy:

“Here’s what I know for me: I find solace in Webworm. I pay for Webworm because of that. I live in a conservative community and often feel alone with my political and humanitarian beliefs. As a Worm, I feel such a sense of community here with people I don’t even know. And life is not as exhausting given the shitshow that the world is right now.

I also, unexpectedly, solved a problem because of Webworm. My bestie’s husband constantly ‘sealioned’ me. It was exhausting, but after learning what ‘sealioning’ is on Webworm, I put up strong boundaries.

And those relationships are better because of knowledge gained from Webworm. I certainly wasn’t expecting help for a personal problem, but learning comes from all sources. Bottom line: I will follow you, David, wherever you and this community go.”

3) David - you should leave Substack immediately (or soon)

There was a big chunk of readers who supported the idea of migrating Webworm to somewhere else, to a platform like Ghost. Here are some of those comments.

Anita:

“When my subscription was about to roll over a couple of weeks ago I seriously considered not renewing so nothing would go to Substack. In the end I decided you do enough to count Nazis and their allies to make my contribution a net good.

But... I am very uncomfortable that a single cent went to Substack while they intend their infrastructure to support Nazis. If there could be a better option in eleven months I would be very grateful.”

Sandy:

“When I heard about the issues at Substack, my immediate thought was, shit, David’s on there. I’ve always tried to live by Popper’s observation of the Tolerance Paradox. If you tolerate intolerance, intolerance wins. Nazi ideology is based on intolerance, full stop.

It also relies on human psychology where if you repeat things enough by exploiting media, the repetition makes things normal. Normalised intolerance has never served human society well. Business models that rely on intolerant views to bring traffic don’t deserve to exist.”

Jennifer:

“Substack is enabling nazis (and terfs and a whole heap of other nasty folk) to earn money on this platform, and substack profits from their rhetoric. In the past, Substack’s advances have been paid to some pretty openly anti-trans folk who have used that advance to spread hate. I love this platform, but financially supporting writers on Substack means we're intertwined in this.”

Heather:

The idea that Nazis will be defeated by “sunlight” or “discourse” is laughable, and in the political environment we find ourselves in — especially as New Zealand becomes further infected with far-right ideology from the US, & the cookers have gotten a foothold in Parliament, I have very little space for the ivory tower mental gymnastics we’re getting from Substack.”

---

The Email I Just Sent to Hamish McKenzie

As all of your feedback buzzed around in my head, I penned another email to Substack’s co-founder, fellow New Zealander and friend Hamish McKenzie.

I wanted to run some things by him, and hear his take, before I decide on whether to keep using Substack to power Webworm, or send this newsletter out using another technology like Ghost.

(As a reader of Webworm you’d notice very little change. It’s a technical change in the background; a logistical pain in the ass for me, but yeah. I’ll do what I need to do.)

This is a slightly abridged version of the email I sent. I left out something he’d said to me in our last email chain that I’d agreed to keep off the record. It’s a negligible thing to leave out.

Hey Hamish,

Welcome to 2024, here we are. I’d hate to be your inbox right now and sure you’re going through a lot.

I guess I’m writing what a lot of lefty-types will be writing to you, and that’s to say I’m in a pretty tricky position. What's unfolded over on Platformer and The Racket has made me pretty uneasy. I know there are a million things going on behind the scenes, but the way Substack’s spun this out feels.... not good to me.

I guess I am writing on the record, this time, to just see if in light of what happened over the last few weeks especially - if there's any chance Substack is going to change its stance and take proactive steps to remove hate speech and extremism. 

That’s my first question to you: Will Substack ever take proactive steps to remove hate speech and extremism. In my mind at its most simplest, if Substack actively removes porn - why not actively remove nazis? I’d take pornography over nazis any day.

Secondly - will Substack rethink its social media aspects like Notes and Recommendations where objectively bad shit is being shown to readers who would not know about it otherwise.

These are the two questions spinning around in my head as I look to take Webworm elsewhere - to places that do actively chase and kill nazi content.  

The whole reason I started Webworm originally was to tackle bullshit ideas - so I have to look at this stuff closely if I’m sitting on a platform that is doing the opposite.

I talk to Luke a lot, and as you know he left Substack a few years ago now just on the fact Substack was letting climate change deniers and transphobes make a lot of money, and spread bad ideas.

I guess years later, this nazi stuff was the thing that really cut through in such a clear way - and to see Substack trying to actively take an angle to minimise what I believe is a real problem is bothersome.

I opened my thoughts on leaving to my readers, and there’s a 3 way split: 

1) Readers who will stay with me wherever I am and don't care

2) Readers who want me to stay on Substack and try and effect positive change (this email is an example of that

3) and those who think I definitely need to leave.

If you’re able to say anything at this point - and stuff I will include in my decision really - let me know. Regardless, let’s remain buds etc. I just need to know I am making the right decision here, hence reaching back out (at a time when you are probably fucking sick of emails).

On the record is good if you can, if you go off record then I will respect that too.

David.

He replied immediately, as he always does, saying he’d get back to me ASAP.

Yesterday, he said it would be easier to talk it over. Nuance can get lost in text.

So in a few days, on Friday, we’re going to Zoom. In a true New Zealand stereotype I am going to be in Hobbiton — the actual fucking Shire — recording a Flightless Bird podcast episode, while Hamish zooms in from the US.

I mean it’ll be a weird convo either way, so lets make it as weird as possible, right?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Stay safe, stay sane,

David.