Nearly two months ago, Elon Musk went on a public crusade against Reddit.
On X, he said it was "insane" that subreddits were blocking links to the platform in protest of him appearing to give a Nazi salute. A few days later, he posted that Reddit users advocating for violence against Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees had "broken the law".
As it turns out, Musk wasn't only using his X platform to call out content on Reddit. He was also privately messaging Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (u/spez), according to people familiar with the matter.
Shortly after the two CEOs exchanged text messages, Reddit enacted a 72-hour ban on the "WhitePeopleTwitter" subreddit that hosted the thread about DOGE employees, citing the "prevalence of violent content". The specific thread Musk shared on X was also deleted, including hundreds of comments that didn’t call for violence or doxxing. (So far, Reddit doesn't appear to have intervened in any moderator decisions to ban X links from the subreddits they oversee.)"
When asked about Musk and Huffman's correspondence, Reddit spokesperson Gina Antonini sent the following statement: "We take any report of Reddit policy violations seriously, whether on Reddit directly or through other public or private means. We will evaluate content reported to us and take action if violating." Musk didn't respond to a request for comment.
Bluesky saw a surge in new users after Elon Musk tanked Twitter/X, but the platform still has a lot of problems and issues with growing its user base. I've seen lots of complaints about it.
This is it. There was doxxing and calls for violence happening. It got called out and shut down. That's not Elon instructing spez, it's spez enforcing reddits content policy regardless of how it was bought up or reported.
This isn't the first time that r/WhitePeopleTwitter (WPT) has been the subject of controversy. The subreddit has openly mocked Elon Musk for years now; and, in some cases, shared satirical or hoax tweets taken from their original context that then went viral on social media, and caused widespread misinformation due to many viewers misinterpreting the WPT joke tweets as "real". This prompted the creation of the Twitter/X account "RedditLies", which may or may not have involvement from Musk himself. Musk then complained to Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (u/spez) about WPT, resulting in WPT being temporarily banned, despite former long-time Reddit general manager Erik Martin stating that Reddit would not ban communities solely for featuring controversial content. (Martin stepped down in 2014; see here and here.) So there's more going on here than just "WPT was banned due to calls for violence".
My bad. I took a look at sinkit awhile back and it wasn’t a very smooth experience. Just took another look and there has been some serious improvement. Thanks for the tip. Looks like somewhere I might open my wallet.
So Reddit has jumped the shark to the oligarchy - they seem to forget who matters here - the users.
Seems somebody is turning into that guy that runs WordPress :).
Article excerpt:
https://archive.is/BKXWb
For those who want to read the whole article but don't want to log into the website.
Almost as if sp*z didn't care about redditors and just wanted to pander to the billionaires. Oh wait...
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There's the fediverse, but realistically not a lot of people are going to move.
Bluesky saw a surge in new users after Elon Musk tanked Twitter/X, but the platform still has a lot of problems and issues with growing its user base. I've seen lots of complaints about it.
Bluesky is great and much better than twitter, but it isn't really an alternative to reddit.
It's paywalled, try https://archive.is/8PlKn
This could've been your moment, /u/spez
When had he ever risen to the occasion?
Rose like a congressman without Viagra.
When looking at the sub “jailbait” he used to moderate. Wait, is that what you mean by “rise to”?
So musk complained to reddit that one sub was full of calls to violence and reddit banned the sub.
Was the sub filled with posts calling for violence and were the mods removing posts that did?
If reddit was stopping the Twitter ban there would be more to this story but if the sub was allowing calls of violence to stay up then ehh.
This is it. There was doxxing and calls for violence happening. It got called out and shut down. That's not Elon instructing spez, it's spez enforcing reddits content policy regardless of how it was bought up or reported.
This isn't the first time that r/WhitePeopleTwitter (WPT) has been the subject of controversy. The subreddit has openly mocked Elon Musk for years now; and, in some cases, shared satirical or hoax tweets taken from their original context that then went viral on social media, and caused widespread misinformation due to many viewers misinterpreting the WPT joke tweets as "real". This prompted the creation of the Twitter/X account "RedditLies", which may or may not have involvement from Musk himself. Musk then complained to Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (u/spez) about WPT, resulting in WPT being temporarily banned, despite former long-time Reddit general manager Erik Martin stating that Reddit would not ban communities solely for featuring controversial content. (Martin stepped down in 2014; see here and here.) So there's more going on here than just "WPT was banned due to calls for violence".
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
I’m currently a paid subscriber. That ends in less than 2 weeks. Forever.
Reddit had a chance to do it right. Now I get spammed with bullshit award messages. Just fuck all that.
Reddit lost its way with its NFC fiasco. I’m voting with my wallet.
Delete the app and get /r/sinkit
Hahhahahahahhhhhhh . . . no
Dunno why you need to give such a rude response.
You’re upset with reddit and want to vote with your wallet, so I’m recommending an option that blocks ads…
My bad. I took a look at sinkit awhile back and it wasn’t a very smooth experience. Just took another look and there has been some serious improvement. Thanks for the tip. Looks like somewhere I might open my wallet.
This is unfortunate but not unexpected. One more reason to avoid posting any personal data to Reddit and focusing only on general information.
Fuck spez.
Reddit would do better if it enforced it's own rules.
As well as creating a user's bill of rights.
Everything is arbitrary and based on ideology today.
So Reddit has jumped the shark to the oligarchy - they seem to forget who matters here - the users.
Seems somebody is turning into that guy that runs WordPress :).
Free Speech Absolutist at work.
Just nerds being nerds in a SQL database.
You spelled texted the CEO to remove violent content and to allow posts from X wrong
Self respect is nor for everyone.