Musk's salute leads Reddit forums to block links to X
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Screenshot: Reddit
Dozens of Reddit's communities, or subreddits, have discussed or enacted bans on links to Elon Musk's X in response to Musk's gestures at a Trump inaugural event that many interpreted as a Nazi salute.
The big picture: Social media users have been criticizing Musk for the gesture, posting videos of him raising his arm side by side with neo-Nazis doing the same.
Driving the news: Subreddits such as r/christianity and r/newjersey posted notice that they would block links to X next to images of Musk's gesture.
- Other subreddits — including r/rva, r/nba and r/DnD — have held discussions about whether they should ban X links.
- A few subreddits are only allowing screenshots in an attempt to reduce traffic to X.
What they're saying: "Given Musk's actions on Monday, it may be time to rethink how we engage with the platform," a user posted on the r/DnD subreddit.
- "Beyond Musk giving two Nazi salutes, he has repeatedly amplified harmful rhetoric and interacted with accounts promoting Nazi ideology, raising serious questions about Twitter's role in spreading hate and extremism," the person added.
- Another user said that it "doesn't make sense to ban X when we can still post from Meta/Facebook (which recently ended its fact-checking program) or even directly to Truth Social."
Between the lines: Reddit gives subreddits and their moderators control over their posting rules.
- Reddit itself doesn't have an overall policy regarding users posting X links. It also doesn't generally tell subreddit moderators what rules to enforce.
- Reddit is "one of the last places where this kind of collective community action happens online these days because the moderators of the spaces actually have a little power," Derek Powazek, author of "Design for Community," said in a post on Bluesky.
