Almost two months in the past, Elon Musk went on a public campaign towards Reddit.
Because it seems, Musk wasn’t solely utilizing his X platform to name out content material on Reddit. He was additionally privately messaging Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, in accordance with individuals conversant in the matter.
Shortly after the 2 CEOs exchanged textual content messages, Reddit enacted a 72-hour ban on the “WhitePeopleTwitter” subreddit that hosted the thread about DOGE staff, citing the “prevalence of violent content.” The specific thread Musk shared on X was additionally deleted, together with a whole lot of feedback that didn’t name for violence or doxxing. (To this point, Reddit doesn’t seem to have intervened in any moderator decisions to ban X hyperlinks from the subreddits they oversee.)
When requested about Musk and Huffman’s correspondence, Reddit spokesperson Gina Antonini despatched the next assertion: “We take any report of Reddit coverage violations critically, whether or not on Reddit immediately or via different public or non-public means. We’ll consider content material reported to us and take motion if violating.” Musk didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The information of Musk’s outreach to Huffman shortly made its strategy to a few of Reddit’s moderators, who mentioned it collectively on Discord. After one wrote, “Musk is coming for /r/Comics,” which was one of many subreddits that was banning hyperlinks to X, one other responded by calling him a “big child,” in accordance with screenshots of the dialog that have been shared with me. (Since he purchased Twitter, Musk has blocked hyperlinks to competitors multiple times, together with as recently as last month.)
“Elon known as out loss of life threats,” wrote one other Reddit moderator. “He shouldn’t be capable of affect Reddit, but when what he calls out is loss of life threats then in fact they should come down.”
One more responded: “Oh, I don’t have any downside with eradicating rule-breaking content material (and taking the respective admin motion on mentioned accounts), however I discover it a bit problematic that he’s capable of exert affect on each private and non-private establishments.”
Some noteworthy job modifications within the tech world:
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