More than 50 Reddit communities ban X links to protest Musk
The cascade of link bans came after Musk made a hand gesture at a Monday rally that many compared to a Nazi salute, which many cited in their protests, among other things.
A more fractured internet is coming. Posting sources will be forbidden. Discourse will become more polarized, disconnected, and extreme.
Most of these Reddit bans on Twitter are also half assed. They still allow screenshots of Twitter posts. That means the content is still spread, and Twitter remains relevant.
Lots of these subreddits don’t even get a lot of Twitter links in the first place. Like for lotrmemes it makes zero difference.
That said, Musk and Twitter suck. I have deleted my Twitter account three years ago.
However there still is some information, where Twitter is a good source.
Lots of these subreddits don’t even get a lot of Twitter links in the first place. Like for lotrmemes it makes zero difference.
That's not true. Gondor uses Twitter instead of beacons to call for aid now.
However there still is some information, where Twitter is a good source.
I agree. There are some great OSINT posters that share all sorts of information you won't find anywhere else. For example when Israel struck back at Iran after the initial wave of missiles and drones- it was a guy on twitter who geolocated and found the satellite images of what they hit.
And that information directly contradicted the Israeli official narrative. You won't find it on NY Times. You won't find it on Washington Post. Hell, you'd have a hard time finding it here or on reddit. That's just one example, there's a wealth of live data about Russia v Ukraine as well. One thing I've really learned the last 3 years since 2022 is that the mainstream media will completely lie to you. It isn't just bias, it's outright lying. So people online who are dedicated to the truth and provide receipts, I find, is a breath of fresh air. It allows humans without privileged information to go online and actually see with their own eyes what is happening on the ground. It's something that frankly hasn't been the case for any time in human history. Although I think it's going to be a short window of time that will be true.
I think Twitter has progressively been becoming more censored. For now, most people are more or less ignored if you aren't talking about the hot topics- but I think very soon anything against official US narrative will be banned. Same thing with Facebook, Tiktok, etc.
We're seeing the social media sites align themselves with the US government in preparation for the next global war. The first thing to go in war is the truth. Soon there will be a giant firewall and we won't be able to see content from overseas. Initially people will be able to use VPNs and other methods and then eventually that will be met with criminal charges.
mainstream media will completely lie to you
Mainstream media doesn’t care to research thoroughly and rarely have journalists who actually understand the topic they’re reporting on. It’s not lies, just superficial sloppy work mostly.
Journalists rarely dig through OSINT themselves. They will ask an Possibly biased expert who actually reads and is able to interpret OSINT. Then the journalist will only understand half and misunderstand another part. The cite some quotes from the expert that then make for an article with a clickbaity headline. Only if you‘re very lucky the journalist will review the OST themselves or even show the source directly in their reporting. It’s surprisingly rare that journalists speak the language of the country they’re reporting about.
Not all is great with OSINT, as it’s full of selection bias, rumors, unconfirmed information, and people with agendas.
Most of these Reddit bans on Twitter are also half assed. They still allow screenshots of Twitter posts. That means the content is still spread, and Twitter remains relevant.
I wholeheartedly agree. I personally got fed up trying to make a new account recently where I got shadowbanned, where there’s accounts that steal posts from the past and repost them as new just to farm karma and they stay up despite bots detecting them as spam/reposts.
My point is if they’re looking to enforce something they should not do it in a half-assed way.
I did see a sub called fullmoviesonyoutube or something where a mod soloed the ban. Pretty amusing to read the user comments in that one
I feels like bizarro world if you fall somewhere in the middle of the political spectrum or don't really care about politics. Seems their are only two extremes and you have to drink the cool-aid of whatever site you're on or be suppressed. Whether you agree or disagree the push to ban twitter/x from all the sports subs was definitely a coordinated operation. Very troubling to me to see this kind of mass manipulation going on... these sports subs should have nothing to do with politics but maybe I'm the delusional one. I don't know.
That's how protests work. Just because you are not affected, does not mean you should not participate. Any subreddit participating is probably trying to show they are anti-nazi, and/or they support the efforts of the others in the platform.
Of course it causes trouble for users, but sadly that's what Twitter has become and it deserves this hate. None of this would have happened if Elon truly advocated for freedom of speech, instead of using his power to push his right-wing beliefs.
I am proud that there are still some mods in Reddit that take the risk of protesting. I was afraid they got removed on the previous Reddit protest, about pricing changes.
Adding to that, not caring about politics probably means going with the flow and not reacting. Which, in today's capitalist world, usually means supporting big corporations by using their services, just because everyone else use them.
If we like it or not, twitter is still the most important social network for journalisst and thinktankers.
Twitter has always been the red headed step child of social media. It had outsized cultural importance because most people consumed it via screenshot, not actually browsing the site. The reach of an individual twitter user is greatly augmented by their reach on other social platforms via screenshot
And sports. Sports alone is enough to drive Twitter.
Your right it is where all the journalists post and Substack is a second. Which I can see Reddit banning. Probably not the best to get news from Reddit anymore.
I saw it from the monster hunter community, now you can't post the source of a fanart lol.
Might get more artists to move to Bluesky at least
You can always leave their @handle if you want to credit them. Most artists also have other channels. If they only have X... Well sucks to be them but it's thteir choice.
Here on Lemmy, people who claim to advocate for freedom of speech and information, demanding for information shared on social networks to be controlled, shutdown and people to be censored based on unknown and ambiguous criteria, without even understanding the implications of it.
Details at six
What does freedom of speech have to do with independent subreddits deciding they don't want to serve content from a private company they don't agree with?
It's easy if they have no idea what "freedom of speech" actually means and what it actually allows. The phrase at face value is nothing like the constitutionally protected action. They are too ignorant to know that.
That’s easy, freedom of speech means you can say what I want but not what you want, and it applies everywhere including in my dreams. So if you say something I don’t like in my dreams I can criminally charge you and take you to hell in a cell.
Edit: Thought this would be obvious satire, but here we are. ¯(ツ)/¯
Look, I'm all for freedom of speech. I'm nearly as close to an absolutist as they come.
This is an example of a protest. Nobody is restricting anybody's speech. They aren't banning Musk-supporters. They aren't censoring Trumpers. They are specifically banning links to a website owned by a billionaire who did a Nazi salute at an event where hundreds of millions if not billions of people would witness him.
Not to worry, you're simply confusing freedom of speech with obliging private actors to consume content they don't want to consume or disagree with. The first is a fundemental principle of democratic legal systems and recognized as a perempotry norm under international law. The second is authoritarianism.
There's a growing number of legally illiterate people who think freedom of speech is absolute and even affords one the right to oblige others consume their speech through the government. That is fundamentally wrong and a complete misunderstanding of how these key principles of freedom work and have always worked in modern democratic systems.
Newsflash - freedom of speech is not absolute. Never has been. There are very specific, explicitly codified limitations. Why? Because words are the most powerful weapons and can be used to target and threaten the freedoms of other people, including their freedom to life. Which is why rights and obligations are always balanced against each other, following the principle of proportionality.
If you feel so strongly about not being able force others to consume content they don't want to consume, then I have bad news for you - you are opposing democracy. But it seems like you, and many other like you, are just confused, rather than actively promoting anti-democratic standpoints. The truly sad part? The impact is the same regardless of intent.
Edit: Want to know more? Details at 6.
He's a nazi. There's no space it civil society for nazis.
Wat
Existence of mods goes against the concept of freedom of speech. People aren't prevented from directly using Twitter themselves. They'd be on 4chan if they wanted something as close to an unfiltered internet.
We wouldn't be on our respective instances that have blocked off entire instances and communities if we wanted to consume unfiltered internet content.
Waiting for Spez to weigh in with his typical subtlety and even-handedness... 🍿
Please don't insult pigs by comparing them to that cunt.
And start banning mods who don’t support Musk and Nazism, wholeheartedly.
Even wearing super cyclical goggles, it doesn't make sense for reddit to intervene here. Twitter is a competitor, why would they want to encourage people to link to a competitor?
If they have a data sharing agreement, I can think of a few rea$on$.
cyclical goggles
The goggles, they keep spinning!
legacy social media
Remember last time Redditor's protested only to cave so they could keep being mods? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I remember and that’s why I’m here reading your comment 🫡
This is a bit different from before. They aren't privating the subs this time, they're just doing their unpaid full time job by disallowing posts with untrusted sources.
I was the founder of r/TIHI in a past life and u/spez removed all of us moderators because we weren‘t opening the sub as part of our protest.
I them requested them to take down the subs title picture and logo which I created and they didn‘t even bother.
Better to have you here mate.
Thank you for your service
A redditor of quality, you have my respect.
Yeah let’s see if they keep this up. In a few weeks they’ll cave in and say, “Well we want to keep people informed”.
Does Reddit have some sort of contract with X with regards to sharing of content? I know they have one with OpenAI.
why do they still show these kind of pictures of him. for me there is only one picture of him to show from now on
I still enjoy the edgy liberty pic and the balding one.
Oh yes for the totally unproblematic picture taken at the inauguration, and since it's so unproblematic he can't possibly have an issue with it being posted.
Although a solid second favorite is him in a punk leather jacket. Mostly because he hates it.
I would also accept the picture of him leaping 2" off the ground with both arms up and his belly showing.
Reddit users are about to get reminded that its not their platform to make rules
It's either the power mods or the admins who decide how content gets censored on reddit. Which one is worse?
That was my guess as well, but so far, as reported to Ars Technica, they don’t intend to intervene
I give them a week before they change their minds
Wait until some Trump loyalist brownshirt calls pigboy.
Why would the owners of Reddit care about twitter?
He's going to buy reddit now. Lmao.
Can’t musk simply state that naziism is wrong and hitler was a very bad guy?
That’s right of coarse he can!
HHHMMM!
Why?!
Le epic 14 y/o troll mAStEr mOvE was doing the worst nonverbal political thing one can do and getting away with it without apologizing.
The centrists accept it might have been inadvertent. He'd never have the lefties anyway and the far right will, of course, absolutely love it. It's the kind of thing a kid in shoes of power might dream up and run by the team and all have fits of laughter: “they can't prove anything if you don't say anything!”
/fiction /conspiracytheory
Nice way to commemorate the Jan 6ers’ prison release. And great distraction, as it must be.
That would be good for Lemmy.
Don't do it as a "protest." Do it as the new norm. Xitter has no worth and should be relegated to the porta-potty of time.
Aaaand here come the admins to relentlessly bully any mods involved in this into submission. Because the reddit admins are pathetic, greedy little pig boys who don't give a flying shit about their users or moderators.
Lemmy instances should follow suit.
Disagree, but I also almost never follow them anyway. I pretty much only follow a link if I think it's to a first party article or something.
I've thought that since they started locking almost everything behind a login
De-centralized as long as you go with what I say...
I'm not sure you understand what decentralized means.
How can you have been on Lemmy longer than me yet have such a fundamental misunderstanding of centralized/non-federated vs decentralized/federated?
You're perfectly free to go on Lemmy instances that don't have that as a rule.
Here we go. If let's just say all the instances came together and did the same ban because some hivemind mentality had taken over. It would metaphorically be centralized again. The chances of that happening-probably zero.
Oh that'll fucking show em
deleted by creator
Some Lemmy communities already have.
I’ve seen that the Playstation and Nintendo communities have both banned it recently.
Twitter probably benefits from people being redirected to their site from repostings with how it has become the go to source for news like sports, so it might. Won't hurt Elon financially but less people being exposed to the content there that Elon wants to push that don't actively use Twitter is a good thing even if it is only a few.
Even small moves is a good thing with how over the years sports and game submissions have become increasingly more Twitter submissions.
Twitters value has already been going down the shitter thanks to shit leadership, this is just another nail.
The less its posts are shared, the less its relevance is to the world. I can't see that as a bad thing. It always baffled me how outsize Twitter's influence was on world events/news while having 1/5th the active userbase of Facebook.
Meta, Twitter, now tiktok. BLATANTLY obvious coordination to propagandize social media.
Fuck then all, damn then to hell, scourge of modern society.
I used to spend time on Facebook catching up with friends and family. That was way back in like 2010. I can't stand that platform now. It's all AI trash and random reels. I don't even know why I'm getting some of these reels but I suspect they are sharing data with other platforms like YT. I miss the internet of the 2000s...
Those are rookie numbers!
Liberals are just sheep. They believe whatever the media tells them.
That projection.
My first reaction when seeing the salute was ” oh come on, it can’t be that bad… oh it’s way worse than I thought”
I mean if you only saw and read Reddit during the last election campaign, you'd be ABSOLUTELY sure at the first half of the campaign that Biden was going to win, might as well don't have an election at that point
And then, after Kamala got into the campaign, again, if you only saw and read Reddit, you'd be, again, ABSOLUTELY sure that she would win, it wasn't even a contest.
If reality were downvotes, upvotes or massive bans to users posting against the thread zeitgeist, yeah sure, that would be what happened.
Hard to accept reality after that harsh wakeup call
Liberals are just sheep. They believe whatever the media tells them.
That projection.
As they mindlessly repeat whatever they just saw linked on "onlyrealpatriots.info.biz" from Facebook.
I laughed when he did it twice as if just to emphasize the first one wasn't a mistake.
Supports far right movement in Germany, says they are the only way to fix Germany.
Agrees with Jewish people being anti white- "“Jewish communties [sic] have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
The billionaire owner and CTO of X, formerly Twitter, responded the same evening: “You have said the actual truth.”"
Does NAZI salutes on a national platform.
People in denial: "I'm sure it was a mistake"
Yeah, fuck Reddit. They are part of the problem.
Fuck Reddit and X
tbf it's the users of Reddit and they're doing the right thing
They are still on reddit
To befair the only lemmy community I've seen thats blocked X is /c/Playstation.
So reddit still has 49 more than we do.
Beware of this festering pile of excrement that is the conservative subreddit. Ready your sanity and eye bleach before venturing in
Holy shit. I made the mistake of looking in there. What a festering pile of misinformed louts. There’s not a brain cell to be found in there.
Or, apparently, introspectiveness...
Liberals are just sheep. They believe whatever the media tells them. They think they don't need to believe anything other than the media tells them. One of the things the media tells them is they are superior to others, and it gets into their heads.
Kettle meet pot?
You have just seen an Eldritch Abomination (-10 Sanity)
Yeah that'll show him. I'm sure he's gonna lose a ton of sleep over the miniscule amount of traffic that's going to drop for his shitty website that he bought and drove into the ground.
Wait actually he cares way too much about how people view him so it might actually bother him a ton. It's hard to say really.
Either way stop using Twitter and reddit. Both terrible.
Nah, they're not big on non-compliance. So consider an uprising. Spez wants to play with a big oligarchs, he won't take a chance on pissing anyone off.
And block all their domains/IP ranges too. People really need to understand how third party tracking works.
What’s “X”? Is that p0rn or something?
Work in progress swastika.
Well it is run by a jerkoff.
Imagine you had a relationship that turned out toxic, and then you decided to protect yourself by severing it. Later, when you even hear about X, your heart is filled with negative emotions, and you realize you need to move on.
In before reddit forces those subs to allow links to twitter.
Good idea. We should do this here.
Assume a single instance should be able to do this no? If so, kind of sad that I don't think any have that I am aware of.
/c/Playstation has, and lemmy.world has asked users if they should as a sticky.
Would much prefer users and instance admins to have better filtering tools.
Kinda wild to me it took this long but I'm not going to be mad about doing the right thing.
If this is what it took they were just lazy before. This has been CLEARLY where he is pushing things for a long time now. Twitter is in the Xhitter.
I wonder how long their corporate overlords will allow this to continue.
Most of the X links on Reddit just point to non-X content anyway, and are used by Reddit posters to circumvent subreddit policies on excluding dodgy sources. In other words they were using X as a shitty URL shortener.
Wow, leave it to redditors to make change without actually making change. A few of those subs had open discussions on instituting a ban and they discovered x links were in the dozens per year. Musk is definitely gonna feel that. What they should have done is ban all twitter images as well, those fuckers make up 3/4 of posts on /r/popular. Or ban/restrict musk news, because it feels like the remainng 1/4 posts are "news" that cover musk, including dozens of discussions on whether the nazi cheated in fucking videogames or not ( same as here come to think of it ). But no, they're addicted to those and unable to make meaningful changes, so they're left with these halfcocked "bans".
To be fair, Reddit bans everyone for everything now
And so begins the stun lock. Genius move actually with adversaries so predictable
Wow, "super effective" now the big boss of neo-fascism is in trouble with this. We will now beat them. Next week no one will talk about it anymore
So, your stratagy is nukes or go home? You just want one decisive move to win, otherwise why bother?
When a baby is born it doesn't just run out of the womb and poop in a toilet. First it slides out. Many months later it starts crawling. Then slowly walking. Then walking. Then running. Then potty training. THEN it can run to a toilet to poop.
But by your logic, oh well, can't run to a toilet on day 1. Best just not to be born.
Who cares
I get it, why give him any attention. But this is not about him--it's about the protest this time. That's fine by me, let's get people going!
Fucking preformative liberals, instead of attacking the systems of exploitation that harm the community they virtue signal for they focus on the temporarily manufactured villains.
If you can't have everything, you'd prefer nothing? Isn't that the same logic that got us a second trump term?
What got us a second Trump term was the Dems acting like they are owed votes, instead of acting like they need to earn votes.
So... what?
In your ideal world nazi sites wouldn't be blocked?
What are you even arguing here?
There is no world in which refusing to use a site run by a nazi is a bad thing.
