Dozens of subreddits have banned links to X after the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk made a gesture that many compared to a “Nazi salute” at US president Donald Trump’s inauguration rally.
On Monday, after thanking the president’s supporters at the rally, the Tesla titan and “first buddy” slapped his hand on his chest and extended his arm outward and upward with his palm facing downwards.
The gesture was widely called out by historians and organisations supporting the Holocaust survivors as resembling a Nazi salute.
Mr Musk, responding to the criticism of the gesture, called it “dirty tricks” on a post on X.
“Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” the world’s richest man said.
Following Mr Musk’s actions, the moderators of over 50 subreddits have announced that links from X would no longer be allowed in the posts and comments of these online communities, according to NBC News.
The subreddits that have banned links to X include several prominent ones that discuss sports, including r/formula1, r/NBA, and r/NFL.
Other popular subreddits with hundreds of thousands to millions of subscribers, including r/TwoXChromosomes, r/nintendo, and r/nursing have also banned links to the Musk-owned platform, likely affecting the reach X gets.
Moderators of many of these communities specifically mentioned Mr Musk’s “salute” incident as one of the reasons for the new rules.
“While we try our best to stay neutral and apolitical, we do not believe taking a stance against Nazi symbolism is or should be a political issue. Hate speech and the promotion of it has never been tolerated in our community,” the moderator of the r/NBA community posted.
Moderators of some of the subreddits also discussed how the ban was instituted in hopes of encouraging followers to move away from posting on X.
Reddit’s Formula One racing community, which has nearly 5 million members, said it banned links to X on a trial basis with plans for a permanent ban after hosting a discussion with followers.
“But we also realize that it’s a chicken or the egg problem and as a community of almost 5 million, we probably have a non-trivial effect as to what platform is the native source for F1 news,” the online community’s announcement post said.
Reddit, however, said the platform itself has not imposed a ban on X links.
“Reddit has a longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of association,” it said in a statement.
X did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.
