Billionaire Tesla CEO and Trump ally Elon Musk allegedly pressured the CEO of social media platform Reddit to stifle users criticizing him or President Donald Trump, leaving platform moderators furious.
They exchanged messages just before the subreddit r/WhitePeopleofTwitter was given a temporary ban for 72 hours
I’ve been seeing the steady increase in posts and complaints about Reddit banning folks for political speech for the last couple of months and I finally have had enough so here I am. Been on there for 14 years… Byeeeee.
That’s not even recent. Russia has been astroturfing Reddit since at least 2015.
I remember reading /r/politics pretty often back then. All of a sudden, half the posts were from RT talking about Hillary and the DNC. Yes, what they did to Bernie was bullshit but the point was clearly to either get people to vote for Trump instead or to encourage people not to vote.
Now, like you said, it’s about the war. All of a sudden, every single post about the invasion has dozens of people who are totes Ukrainian and think that Zelenskyy is a monster who refuses to end the war. Yet they either have a rather bare post/comment history or never mentioned the war before.
And, if you go to the profile for any user who identified themselves as Ukrainian years ago, it’s crazy but they’re still in favor of the war and protecting Ukraine.
This is what propaganda is. It’s not just the government putting up posters saying you should listen to them; it’s convincing you that your views are extreme and unpopular.
Haven’t gotten banned yet but it’s definitely gotten to the point on Reddit where you are aware that you can’t discuss some topics.
Like mentioning Luigi could get you shadow-banned. Redditors acted like they were going to stand up against this and yet there’s nothing. So the censorship is working - either all the comments are getting removed or people are too afraid to talk about it.
I’ve been seeing the steady increase in posts and complaints about Reddit banning folks for political speech for the last couple of months and I finally have had enough so here I am. Been on there for 14 years… Byeeeee.
Was about 17 years.
The Russians are astroturfing hard, doing everything to justify their invasion and banning anyone who disagrees.
No point anymore.
That’s not even recent. Russia has been astroturfing Reddit since at least 2015.
I remember reading /r/politics pretty often back then. All of a sudden, half the posts were from RT talking about Hillary and the DNC. Yes, what they did to Bernie was bullshit but the point was clearly to either get people to vote for Trump instead or to encourage people not to vote.
Now, like you said, it’s about the war. All of a sudden, every single post about the invasion has dozens of people who are totes Ukrainian and think that Zelenskyy is a monster who refuses to end the war. Yet they either have a rather bare post/comment history or never mentioned the war before.
And, if you go to the profile for any user who identified themselves as Ukrainian years ago, it’s crazy but they’re still in favor of the war and protecting Ukraine.
This is what propaganda is. It’s not just the government putting up posters saying you should listen to them; it’s convincing you that your views are extreme and unpopular.
That’s the terrifying thing about it… we’re being horribly influenced
No, the terrifying part is that we’re letting it happen without getting angry, much less fighting back.
Haven’t gotten banned yet but it’s definitely gotten to the point on Reddit where you are aware that you can’t discuss some topics.
Like mentioning Luigi could get you shadow-banned. Redditors acted like they were going to stand up against this and yet there’s nothing. So the censorship is working - either all the comments are getting removed or people are too afraid to talk about it.