After X owner Elon Musk made a hand gesture Monday that many people said resembled a Nazi salute, a protest movement has erupted across the social media platform Reddit.
NBC News has identified more than 50 subreddit communities where moderators have since announced that links from X, formerly Twitter, will no longer be allowed in new posts and comments. The communities protesting range in size from dozens of members to millions, totaling at least 40 million members. Typically, only a fraction of these members are active, particularly in older or larger subreddits. There are around 100,000 active subreddits on the platform.
In many of the posts announcing the new rules, moderators specifically mentioned the salute incident, which took place at a rally following President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“Last night, at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and known alt-right personality, showed the world who he truly is, and performed a full Sieg Heil Nazi salute not once, but twice,” said the announcement post in the subreddit for “Destiny 2,” an online game, which has more than 900,000 members. “Here in r/destiny2, we do not tolerate Nazis. Anyone spouting Nazi ideology or hateful speech have, and always will be permanently banned on sight, without chance for appeal.”
During his speech at the post-inauguration rally, Musk said the 2024 election “really mattered” and thanked the crowd “for making it happen,” before placing his right hand on his chest and then extending his arm, palm facing down, at an upward angle. He then turned around and made the same gesture and said, “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.”
Musk has referred to allegations that he performed a Nazi salute as “pure propaganda” and “dirty tricks.” When the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that combats antisemitism, wrote that Musk “made an awkward gesture” that was “not a Nazi salute,” Musk replied “Thanks guys,” with a laughter emoji.
Some of the other subreddit announcement posts referenced Musk’s rally appearance as well as the political environment on X, citing unmoderated hate speech and pro-Nazi content on the platform, and Musk’s personal endorsement of far-right political figures and views. Some announcements also referenced the fact that X posts are no longer viewable without logging into an account. Many of the communities said that posting screenshots of posts on X is still allowed.
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Not allowing links to X in large subreddits could be a major way to suppress Musk’s platform’s reach when it comes to the communities on Reddit that are taking part. Some moderators discussed how the ban was in hopes of encouraging major figures in their communities to move away from posting on X at all.
Dozens of other subreddits are currently engaged in community discussions around whether to ban X links. The subreddit for Formula One racing, which has 4.8 million members, banned X links on a trial basis with the intention of a permanent ban after hosting a discussion thread.
“Our main concern with a full ban is that while many F1 journalists have joined Bluesky, teams, drivers & FOM have not,” the announcement post said. FOM stands for Formula One Management, and Bluesky has emerged as one of the leading alternative platforms to X. “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.”
Subreddits are run by volunteer moderators, who are not affiliated with the company that owns the platform. In the past, subreddits have engaged in similar protest movements, such as one to support net neutrality.
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Some of the subreddits acknowledged that links to X were not frequently posted to begin with, but that the decision to ban them was symbolic.
“I acknowledge that this action is largely just virtue signalling,” wrote a moderator for a subreddit about the video game “Baldur’s Gate 3,” which has over 180,000 members. “But if somebody starts popping off Nazi salutes at the presidential inauguration of a purported ‘first world’ country, then virtue signalling is the least I can do.”
In a statement, a Reddit spokesperson clarified that the company itself has not imposed a ban on X links, with many still being posted across the platform.
“Reddit has a longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of association,” the statement said.
The subreddits banning links to X are diverse. They include communities centered on the U.S. states of New Jersey, Massachusetts and Georgia, U.S. cities like Salt Lake City, Utah and Buffalo, New York, and international cities like Exeter in the U.K. and London in Ontario, Canada. They also include communities for bands, genres of music, video games, reality TV shows, sports teams and even some adult communities that feature nudity.
One of the largest subreddits that banned links to X is the NBA community for professional basketball, which has 15 million members. In the same post, moderators also banned links to Meta’s Instagram, Facebook and Threads, as well as any other social media platform that requires users to log in to see posts, based on feedback from community members.
“We have reached this decision after taking recent events and strong sentiment from our community into account,” the announcement post said. “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.”
Screenshots of posts on X will also not be allowed in the NBA subreddit, according to the post, the effects of which will be monitored and subject to change. The post said the decision was also made to encourage journalists and content creators to move to other platforms, such as Bluesky.
