According to The Verge, Elon Musk personally advised Reddit CEO Steve Huffman to move against subreddits limiting X links and postings aiming at Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff members.
The letters followed Musk’s public criticism of Reddit on X, calling it “insane” that certain subreddits restricted links to his site. Furthermore, he said, Reddit users supporting violence against DOGE employees had “broken the law.”
Shortly following their conversation, Reddit banned the WhitePeopleTwitter subreddit for 72 hours alleging a “prevalence of violent content.” Along with hundreds of comments, including ones devoid of encouragement of violence, the thread Musk highlighted on X was also deleted.
Gina Antonini, a Reddit spokesman, said: “We take every allegation of Reddit policy violations seriously, whether on Reddit directly or through other public or private ways. Content reported to us will be assessed, and should violations be found, we will act. Musk answered no to Verge inquiries for comments.
Reddit moderators soon shared Musk’s private outreach among them in a Discord session. Conversational screenshots reveal some expressing annoyance at Musk’s power.
One moderator observed, “He should not be able to influence Reddit, but if what he calls out is death threats, then of course they need to come down.” Others expressed worries about his capacity to pressure public as well as personal venues.
Musk has previously limited ties to rival social media sites, including a ban on some outside URLs last month, following Twitter acquisition.
Although Reddit has not yet intervened in moderator-led decisions to remove X links, the occurrence begs issues of outside influence on content moderation rules.
