Musk wasn’t happy about the speech on Reddit.

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.

  • drhodl@lemmy.world
    12·
    9 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.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 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.

          • drhodl@lemmy.world
            2·
            8 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.

            • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              8 days ago

              conservatives subs being the obvious one. WOrldnews is co-opted by israeli trolls mostly. i see them leak into pics alot so i just report them. r/politics is half and half.

          • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
            0·
            8 days ago

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

            • drthunder@midwest.socialEnglish
              1·
              8 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.

            • Serinus@lemmy.world
              01·
              8 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”?

      • drhodl@lemmy.world
        1·
        8 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…

        • NotLemming@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          8 days ago

          The Russian troll I used to bully here had disappeared and it looks like mods deleted all his comments. I left a 🌻 for him on my last comment to him. Felt quite poignant, I hope he hadn’t fallen out of a window.