Techonology

Reddit Users Boycott XLink After Elon Musk’s Gesture at Inauguration Event

Many Reddit users are boycotting the social media site

Mr Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform, was speaking at a celebratory rally following Mr Trump’s installment as the 47th president on Monday when he paused, placed a hand over his heart and raised his hand with the palm facing up. Took, which faced down. A hailstorm for the audience.

Although Mr Musk drew criticism, speculation about the meaning of the gesture abounded online, including on Reddit, where people gather in thousands of forums known as subreddits to discuss niche interests including hobbies, sports, celebrity gossip and geopolitics. Known in.

By Tuesday, a proposal had surfaced in dozens of Reddit groups across a wide spectrum of interests: Many users wanted to ban the linking of X posts as a way of boycotting the platform and Mr. Musk.

A moderator of a subreddit dedicated to Formula 1 racing said that This will ban content X to “for a trial period.” Links to X are still banned r/newjerseymoderators of that platform said in a post, which was accompanied by a photo of Mr Musk with a red block symbol. (There were similar posts in other location-focused forums.) Two Space focuses on women’s perspectiveSaid that a bot will automatically remove the X link. That announcement cleared thousands of votes.

By Wednesday morning, organizers of groups with huge audiences, focusing on hometowns, sports teams, board games and discussing or surveying the appetite of its members for a possible boycott of Economy Users cited a number of reasons, chief among them the pushback against Mr Musk following his appearance at the inauguration event. Others said they had been frustrated with Mr Musk for some time because of his ex-change and his views on politics and other matters.

Mr Musk appeared to reject that interpretation of his gesture later on Monday, sharing a user’s post on X that called the “salute hoax” part of a Democratic “dirty tricks campaign” against him. “Clearly, they need better dirty tricks,” Mr Musk said“Everybody’s Hitler’s Attack Is So Tired.”

As calls for an Others said the gesture was the last straw, and pointed to allegations that X spreads misinformation or has simply become difficult to use.

“There is no doubt that Twitter has become a lower quality source over the years,” Mediator The Formula 1 group said, citing the prioritization of posts from paying users and its “promotion of sensationalist content”. The response from his community, he said, had inspired him to take action.

But the boycott was divisive; Some users raised questions about censorship and free speech, and Mr Musk’s supporters called it an orchestrated campaign against him. Some? conservative in another forum Said that a boycott would encourage them to leave Reddit instead.

Jarrod Maynard, a moderator in one of the groups that proposed banning links to X, said the boycott is not censorship, but “a community-driven response” to ethical concerns. “Reddit moderators and members are not restricting ideas, content, or discussions originating from Twitter. Instead, they are simply not driving traffic and ad revenue to the platform,” he said.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Reddit said the X boycott was not company policy.

“Reddit has a long-standing commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of association,” a Reddit spokesperson said Wednesday. Reddit doesn’t ban links to X, she said, noting that plenty of such links were still up. Communities were free to propose their own rules, the spokesperson said, and many had previously banned social media links for various reasons.

Once considered one of the darkest parts of the Internet, Reddit has changed in recent years to become a handy resource for people looking for news, entertainment, and personal advice. Its chief executive, Steve Huffman, has maintained a low profile compared to his predecessors and other social media figures such as Meta’s chief executive Mr Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

Reddit’s embrace of volunteer moderators, along with its policing of harassment and other toxic behaviors, helped change how users interact in its forums.

“This is public square. It’s where people meet these days, and it’s a place where people can organize,” said David Dunning, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan who has studied political beliefs and polarization.

Professor Dunning said a boycott could reveal insights into how people respond to political polarization. But whether it will have an impact remains to be seen, he said, depending on the answers to key questions.

“One is, how many communities does it spread through?” He said. “And the second is, how long does this last? Both of those dimensions really matter. ,

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