Reddit users go to war with Twitter. Many major communities ban links to X on subreddits
Elon Musk's behavior stirred up quite a bit of controversy recently - so much so that more and more communities are beginning to boycott his platform.
Lately, there's been a lot of buzz about Elon Musk, for reasons that extend beyond cheating in Path of Exile 2. During the inauguration of President Donald Trump three days ago, the billionaire decided to honor the greeting of the "new" head of state by performing a Roman salute. This gesture immediately reminded many people of the times of World War II, which naturally started a discussion about Musk's intentions.
This isn't the first situation in which the richest man in the world has caused controversy with his behavior: for some, however, the events of the inauguration were the final straw.
Players against Twitter
Elon Musk officially became the owner of Twitter in October 2022, soon renaming it to X. The platform underwent many changes over the next two years, not all of which were positive - users criticized, among other things, the introduction of paid subscriptions and an AI content generation program. It's worth mentioning that a significant portion of game developers moved to BlueSky for this reason.
This includes, among others, gaming communities that have initiated a large-scale movement on Reddit to ban Twitter links, although among them we can also find sports, political, film, book subreddits, and many more. Wherever we look, we find boycott proposals on various forums. Some of them decided to officially implement this rule.
Among them were communities such as Baldur’s Gate 3 and World of Warcraft, which published brief statements explaining their decision. In the case of WoW, not only links are banned, but also screenshots from the platform. As a substitute, the commentators suggest BlueSky, where some official game and studio accounts have moved.
The initiative was met with great enthusiasm from fans, imagining an increase in approval points from companions in Baldur's Gate. Some hope that a successful boycott will encourage devs to use other methods of conveying information, including long-abandoned official game websites.
With luck actions like this will force Blizzard to comunicate everything in other ways like… I didn’t know, the WoW website or forums.
- Turibald
I used to love visiting actual game websites for news back in the days of the old internet. Obviously, it's easier these days with everything compiled in one or two places, but there was something really enjoyable about the old ways.
- Barnhard
The user of the r/pcgaming forum spoke more broadly about the action and also joined the boycott. They admit that banning links to Twitter has been in the plans for a long time due to the increase in hate-filled content. They also add why a similar fate doesn't await other social media - such as Facebook or Instagram.
Facebook is already banned and we don't really get any posts from Instagram, Threads, or any other social media. Secondly, if we do and they hamper the viewing experience of our users or fall below our moderation standards, we will absolutely filter them. Bluesky isn't a problem as of yet and is actually what we prefer you link to if you must share anything in tweet-form.
The first link bans appeared just two days ago, so it's possible that more and more Reddit forums will join the action.