X-bans are spreading on Reddit as communities react to Musk’s gesture

A growing number of Reddit communities are proposing and implementing bans on links to X (formerly known as Twitter), following the recent controversy surrounding Elon Musk’s greeting at a Trump inauguration event on Monday.

The movement has gained considerable momentum across major subreddits, with r/formula1 — a community of 4.8 million subscribers — is announcing a trial banning all X content, with limited exceptions for screenshots of posts from teams, drivers and official F1 accounts not available on other platforms. The moderators noted that while many F1 journalists have migrated to alternative platforms such as Bluesky, teams and drivers have yet to make the transition.

“We think it’s time to try and see how the subreddit works without content from Twitter,” the r/Formula1 moderators said, citing concerns about login requirements, bot activity and platforming by paying users as factors in their decision.

Due to its place in the top 1% of the largest subreddits, r/Formula1’s moderators acknowledged that the size of their community gives them significant influence over which social media platforms become the primary sources of Formula 1 news, stating that “as a community of almost 5 million we probably have a non-trivial effect on which platform is the original source of F1 news.” This raises the question of whether coordinated actions by major subreddits can influence how sports teams, celebrities, and organizations distribute their social media presence across platforms.

Other Reddit sports communities have also been particularly active in this movement. According to Newsweeka proposal to ban X links on r/LiverpoolFC received over 36,000 votes, with users citing adaptation to the club’s values ​​as motivation. Corresponding The Chicago Bears subreddit has a motion that referenced “the values ​​of our team and the history of players who fought in WWII” garnered 16,000 votes.

Some notable gaming communities have followed suit r/fate2 implements an immediate ban on X-links while still allowing screenshots. Moderators pointed to alternative platforms like Bluesky, where official game accounts have an established presence, as viable alternatives to community updates and announcements.

With many more subreddits discussing and implementing X content bans overnight, the new movement could pave the way for discussions about the role of large online communities in shaping platform adoption.

A volatile social media landscape

This development is developing during a period of significant upheaval in the social media landscape. Social media company X, for example, is facing increased regulatory pressure in Europe. The European Commission has stepped up its investigation into the platform’s algorithms and is requesting internal documents about its “recommendation system” by February 15, according to The Guardian. The investigation, which started in December 2023, focuses on potential breaches of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), particularly regarding content moderation and information manipulation.

The instability of social media platforms was further highlighted last week when TikTok became temporarily unavailable to US users on Saturday night, following a Supreme Court ruling. Although the platform resumed operations after approximately 12 hours under a proposed new ownership structure, the brief shutdown had an immediate effect on user behavior. In the build-up to TikTok’s shutdown, alternative platforms saw significant user migration, with Chinese lifestyle platform RedNote seeing an increase from 700,000 to 3.4 million daily active users in the US. This exodus demonstrated the willingness of users to quickly adopt alternative platforms when their preferred services become unavailable.

Adding to events Meta has also faced increasing criticism over platform issues affecting Democratic Party-related content on Instagram, where users searching for terms like “Democrat” are met with content restriction notices. The company also recently announced the end of its third-party fact-checking program in the US, leading to a week-long “Lights Out Meta” boycott campaign, led by REM frontman Michael Stipe. The boycott, which is planned for 19.-26. January, urges users to abandon all Meta platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, WhatsApp and other Meta products.

These changes, combined with ongoing shifts at other major platforms and regulatory pressures, indicate a potential transformation in how online communities interact with platforms and raise questions about the future landscape of social media. While major platforms like Meta and X maintain significantly large user bases—Meta alone claims approximately 170 million Instagram accounts in the U.S.—their response to current criticism and user movements could be crucial. The latest actions of Reddit’s communities, with the platform hosting over 100,000 active subreddits and servers 97.2 million daily active userscan also have a big impact.

For now, platform leaders seem confident in their positions. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, for example, has stated on Threads that “Some people may leave our platforms for virtue signaling, but I think the vast majority and many new users will find these changes make the products better,” suggesting, that some social media giants may be betting on user retention, despite policy changes. Time will tell what the results of such potential strategies may be.