Many Reddit users are boycotting social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, after Elon Musk twice made a gesture during President Trump’s inauguration that drew comparisons to the Nazi salute.
Mr Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform, was speaking at a celebratory rally following Mr Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president on Monday when he groaned, put his hand over his heart and raised his arm, palm down. . a greeting to the audience.
Although Mr. Musk dismissed the criticism, speculation about the meaning of the gesture erupted online, including on Reddit, where people gather in thousands of forums known as subreddits to discuss specific interests, including hobbies, sports, celebrity gossip and geopolitics.
By Tuesday, a proposal had surfaced in dozens of Reddit groups across a wide spectrum of interests: Many users wanted to impose a ban on linking to X posts as a way to boycott the platform and Mr. Musk.
A moderator of a subreddit dedicated to Formula 1 racing said it would ban content from X “for a trial period”. Links from X are now also banned on r/newjersey, moderators of that forum said in a post accompanying a photo of Mr. Musk emblazoned with a red block symbol. (Other country-centric forums had similar posts.) TwoXChromosomes, a space focused on women’s perspectives, said a bot would automatically remove X links. That announcement garnered thousands of upvotes.
By Wednesday morning, organizers of large-audience groups focused on hometowns, sports teams, board games and the economy were discussing or monitoring their members’ appetite for a possible boycott of X. Users who supported a such mentioned several reasons, among which the main one to push against Mr. Musk after his appearance at the inauguration event. Others said they had been frustrated with Mr. Musk for some time because of X’s transformation and his views on politics and other issues.
Mr Musk appeared to play down the interpretation of his gesture later on Monday, sharing a post by an X user who called the “salute hoax” part of a Democratic “dirty trick campaign” against him. “Honestly, they need better dirty tricks,” added Musk. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is very tired.
As momentum built on Reddit for an X boycott on Tuesday, many users who were shocked by Mr Musk’s gesture said the online protest was a way to show “zero tolerance” for Nazism. Others said the gesture was the last straw and pointed to accusations that X spreads misinformation or has simply become difficult to use.
“There is no doubt that over the last few years Twitter has become a low-quality resource,” the Formula 1 group’s moderators said, citing X’s prioritization of posts by paid users and the “promotion of sensational content.” Feedback from their community, they said, had prompted them to take the plunge.
But the boycott was divisive; some users raised questions about censorship and free speech, and supporters of Mr. Musk called it an orchestrated campaign against him. Some conservatives on another forum said a boycott would encourage them to abandon Reddit.
Jarrod Maynard, a moderator at one of the groups proposing to ban X links, said the boycott is not censorship but “a community-driven response” to ethical concerns. “Reddit’s moderators and members are not stopping ideas, content, or discussion coming from Twitter. Instead, they are simply choosing to no longer drive traffic and ad revenue to the platform,” he added.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment while Reddit said a boycott of X was not company policy.
“Reddit has a longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of association,” a Reddit spokeswoman said Wednesday. Reddit does not ban links from X, she added, noting that many such links were still open. Communities were free to propose their own rules, the spokeswoman said, and many had previously banned social media links for various reasons.
Once considered one of the darkest parts of the internet, Reddit has come back in recent years to become a useful resource for people looking for news, entertainment and personal advice. Its chief executive, Steve Huffman, has kept a lower profile than his predecessors and other social media figures such as Mr Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive.
Reddit’s embrace of volunteer moderators, along with its policing of harassment and other toxic behavior, helped it transform the way users interact on its forums.
“It is a public square. It’s where people meet these days and it’s a place where people can organize,” said David Dunning, a University of Michigan psychology professor who has studied political beliefs and polarization.
Professor Dunning said a boycott could reveal insights into how people react to political polarisation. But whether it would have an impact remains to be seen, he said, depending on the answers to critical questions.
“One is, how many communities does this spread to?” he said. “And the second is, how long does it take? Both of these dimensions really matter.”