A number of hugely popular gaming and entertainment Reddits have banned links from Twitter/X after Elon Musk’s “Nazi-like” salute.
Earlier this week, X owner Elon Musk caused controversy at the inauguration of Donald Trump. During his speech, Musk thanked Trump supporters for “making it happen” before he slapped his chest with his right hand and flung his arm diagonally upward, seemingly copying the fascist Sieg Heil salute popularised by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi supporters in the 1940s.
“Since World War II, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists have continued to use the salute, making it the most common white supremacist hand sign in the world,” explained the world’s leading anti-hate organisation, the Anti-Defamation League.
A number of celebrities and organisations called out Musk for the gesture, including his ex-girlfriend Grimes, but now a number of fan-led communities on reddit are distancing themselves from Musk.
“Last night, at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and known alt-right personality, showed the world who he truly is, and performed a full Sieg Heil Nazi salute not once, but twice. The man is without a doubt, a neo-Nazi,” reads a statement from the Mods on the Destiny 2 Subreddit, which has over 910k members.
“It has been abundantly clear that Elon Musk has been slowly, intentionally, and maliciously changing X, formerly Twitter, into a breeding ground and echo chamber for the alt-right. Here in r/destiny2, we do not tolerate Nazis. Because of this, effective immediately, we will no longer be allowing links to X, formerly Twitter, so as to do our part to reduce traffic to the website.”
In one of the most awesome pieces of coincidental timing ever Destiny's subreddit will no longer allow twitter links (for political reasons of course). https://t.co/j9VPLp5HL7 pic.twitter.com/mouqP4ZEb3
— JKief (@JKiefness) January 22, 2025
They went on to explain that many other Subreddits are doing the same, including Formula1, and MadeMeSmile. “While each subreddit’s individual input may be small – every click lost across every subreddit banning links to X, formerly Twitter is one small bit of revenue Elon Musk loses.”
Reddit groups that celebrate Dungeons And Dragons, Age Of Empires 2 and Marvel Rivals have also joined in the boycott as has PC Gaming, which boasts over 3.8million users. “This is something that we’ve been contemplating for a little while now. X has become increasingly hateful, toxic and less and less moderated. This has, in turn, made us less comfortable with letting our subreddit link it to other people. Not to mention the distasteful things Elon Musk has done recently…,” explained a statement from the mod team.
The boycott comes after a number of musicians left the social media site following Musk’s takeover in 2022. “Time to go,” wrote The Cure‘s Robert Smith earlier this week while The Last Dinner Party quit X at the end of last year due to “the platform’s continued spread of misinformation and right-wing political bias”.
In other news, a new Destiny 2 update has introduced a spooky, sci-fi organ to the game, with players using it to cover pop classics.