Summary

Elon Musk privately pressured Reddit CEO Steve Huffman to address content moderation after publicly criticizing Reddit on X for banning links and allegedly hosting violent content.

Shortly after Musk’s messages, Reddit imposed a 72-hour ban on the “WhitePeopleTwitter” subreddit, citing violent content, and deleted a thread Musk highlighted.

Reddit denies external influence but acknowledges evaluating reports seriously.

The controversy stirred discussions among Reddit moderators, some mocking Musk as a “giant baby.” Musk has not commented on the situation.

  • @[email protected]
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    6622 days ago

    Reddit, or at least the subs I frequented, is a cesspool of russian trolls and bots. I made the apparent mistake of calling a couple of trolls out in the r/Europe sub and asked why they weren’t in Kursk, and pffft…permanent ban from all of reddit for “inciting violence”. I think my blood pressure has improved since then, tbh.

      • @[email protected]
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        1322 days ago

        Not sure about bots, but I’ve certainly encountered some trolls. And some people grafted to Elmo’s starfish. At least they aren’t a protected species here…

        • @[email protected]
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          1422 days ago

          It was legitimately funny, when it was still a joke. The memes were good. There was no way that idiot was going to be a serious contender. It was all in good fun.

          At least until someone would say, “you know this is just a joke, right?” Any kind of self-awareness was banned within seconds. Now I don’t know if you’re familiar with volunteer moderators, but it’s pretty rare that they catch that kind of volume 24 hours a day within seconds.

          I fully believe there were state-level troll farms operated by a hostile foreign government moderating that subreddit.

          … and now they’re applying that to the entire site.

          • @[email protected]
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            822 days ago

            I know the UK sub took a hard right turn shortly before the election and it was almost an overnight change

            • @[email protected]
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              322 days ago

              Honestly, I don’t think Lemmy, or any other anonymous social media can really counter this. Outside of heavy moderation in the opposite direction, anyway, which doesn’t feel great.

              It’s just too easy for hostile governments to spin up as many dozens of accounts as they need to argue against you, argue on your side (but badly), and simply just drown you out. It doesn’t take much of that for real people to retreat. Why would you post an opinion that you know is going to immediately get shit on by a dozen “people”?

              • @[email protected]
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                222 days ago

                hostile govt, mainly russ can steal or just make hundreds of acct at a time, they also easily evade reddit bans to spam.

            • drthunder
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              122 days ago

              City and state subs tend to be really bad, I guess because if you’re looking to influence people it’s an obvious place to start. I swore off my city subreddit after a barrage of “this is it, I’m done with the Democrats” after the local George Floyd riots knocked over some statues that were about equality. It was probably astroturfing but beyond frustrating either way.

              • @[email protected]
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                222 days ago

                my west coast one got turned into a conservative subs. when people were asking about things like jury duty and fare evasion/traffic tickets, they all act lik oh you shouldnt done this or that, you should know better.

            • @[email protected]
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              122 days ago

              west coast subs also got astroturfed by the right, the way they act is a goody two shoes type of comments.

          • @[email protected]
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            322 days ago

            That would not surprise me in the slightest. Drumph had a lot of help, starting with those fucking “actors” who cheered him as he descended the golden elevator. He certainly didn’t get there based on merit LOL.

            • @[email protected]
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              222 days ago

              MSM, SOCIAL media practically made him on the news 24/7 for the last, the only time people had clarity from his madness was when mr luigi shot the CEO, and the MSMs and social media was freaking out that the class war is finally gaining attention against them, then they reorientated themselves and the masses were re-distracted again.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 days ago

      i think 2 years ago, someone posted that half reddit comments were subs, politics and news probably is made a large percentage of trolls. alot of people were/including me were criticizing some of news/article sources as being from pure russian backed sources.

  • ThePowerOfGeek
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    1822 days ago

    That makes sense. Spez is such a spineless dweeb, it checks out that a narcissistic blowhard like Musk would be pushing him around.

    • @[email protected]
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      1022 days ago

      Haha I connected that addy to a bot at https://mailbait.info/run and sent him a few thousand emails a day of what I imagine his interests were. I’m sure he found all the links to personal escort services, nude beach satellite imagery, mammalian genital enhancement, one way vacations and STD diagnosis and treatment all very useful.

      • WrenM
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        422 days ago

        I did the same to VoteBlue for spamming the shit out of me every day since before the election.

      • @[email protected]
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        722 days ago

        Haha that’s amazing! If your interested i got an full list of all email addresses of the Doge team, but I can’t post pictures in the comments yet, my account is not old enough. [email protected] this is the adress of “Big Balls”

  • Tempus Fugit
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    3222 days ago

    Well that explains why I dropped reddit. Anything Musk touches turns to shit.

  • @[email protected]
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    5122 days ago

    Imagine being literally the richest man on earth and using your influence to delete mean comments that people wrote about you on the internet.

    • Bonus
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      422 days ago

      Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire I could hook that up, too; 'cause chicks bros dig dudes with money.

  • @[email protected]
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    1122 days ago

    Guys if you haven’t already, I suggest doing what I did a few weeks ago and actually delete your Reddit account, not just stop using it. They need to see their registered account number plummet.

    • @[email protected]
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      922 days ago

      I use to go around talking shit on reddit. Not trolling, just being completely blunt to stupid people. I found myself doing this more and more. It wasn’t until they banned me that I realized… it’s not me. The people on reddit are getting more and more dumb and annoying every day because reddit is going down. A lot of good people left with the API change and more are leaving now. Reddit is dead. Time for Lemmy.

      • Omega
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        522 days ago

        Some of my favorite subs would have a total meltdown, like end of the world shit, because it closed for 24 hours. Then when the app bans happened, there were the blackouts and once again, people were angry at the audacity of the mods not being submissive.

        They want their content above literally anything else. Take it away for a moment and their entire world collapses. And when you see the all consuming, brain-dead, content they were viewing, AND THE IMPORTANCE THEY PUT ON IT, it’s no wonder why they have the reputation they do. That was very sobering.

        • @[email protected]
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          322 days ago

          thier too addicted to certain subs, the main ones are politics, news(adjacent subs of these 2), entertainment, and sports. every other subs is neglible impact.

          • Omega
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            122 days ago

            The two worst reactions that I saw were gaming and NFL. You’re right that most of the subs were fine. It’s the big ones that were addictive to a point I didn’t realize until something happened.

      • @[email protected]
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        222 days ago

        same thing here, i was reminding that thier info was outdated, and other stuff,and i started reporting more, then that also increased and i was getting banned around the same time.

    • Omega
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      2922 days ago

      Banning 3rd party apps was the tipping point for me. Their official app is shit.

  • IninewCrow
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    222 days ago

    Pressure? … you mean a text or a quick phone call telling him what to do