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Performing two Nazi-like salutes may have won Elon Musk some fans over in the dark corners of the internet, but odds are low that his supporters on BitChute and Rumble will be able to make up for the traffic that X is about to lose. In the wake of Musk’s “I give my heart to you” gesture that looked an awful lot like a Sieg Heil salute, a number of large subreddits on Reddit are banning links to X.
The ban spans basically every category of subreddit and will cut off X links from a significant source of traffic, as some of the communities boast millions of subscribers. The subreddit r/TwoXChromosomes, which has more than 14 million members and is one of the largest to join the protest, banned links to X (as well as Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) and encouraged users to report any link or screenshot from Musk’s platform so that it can be removed.
The movement has spread across different sectors of Reddit. Gaming subreddits including r/Nintendo, r/magicTCG, r/Destiny2, and r/KingdomHearts all moved to ban X links. Other major subreddits including those for the communities of Smash Bros., Halo, Counter-Strike, and Dungeons and Dragons are actively polling their members to decide if X will get the boot, per TheGamer.
Sports communities, too, are taking steps to prevent X links from being shared. The subreddit for Formula One racing fans, r/formula1 and its more than four million users are done with Musk’s platform, as did Liverpool fans over in r/LiverpoolFC. Subreddits including r/NFL and r/hockey are considering following suit, which is a pretty big deal given that so much of sports content is driven by reports that originate on Twitter.
The moderator of r/Military offered perhaps the most succinct and decisive ruling on X posts. While other communities debate whether they want to x out X links, u/DreamsAndSchemes made the call without requiring any consultation and offered the following explanation for the ban: “Fuck that guy.”
While the subreddit moderators and community members have seemed to decide that if it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, and passionately does the goose step twice in front of a large audience, then you can safely assume that it is what you think it is.
But others have been less willing to condemn Musk. The Anti-Defamation League called Musk’s Seig Hiel motion “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute,” to which Musk thanked the group in response. Ben Shapiro came to Musk’s defense by sharing a picture of the two of them during a visit to Auschwitz, conveniently leaving out the reason Musk made the visit was because he was promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and allowing outright Nazis to return to X after previously having been banned.
Anyway, the traffic hit X will take from losing major subreddits as an aggregator could be significant, but it’s not clear it’ll matter that much to Musk. He seems content to drive the platform’s functionality into the ground as long as it allows him to accumulate power—and given that he’s apparently got office space in the West Wing, seems like he’s about as close to the levers of power as he can get.
