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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Technology
Andrew Williams

Reddit communities ban X links in response to Elon Musk's 'Nazi-style salute'

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s controversial gesture as he spoke during the inaugural parade inside Capitol One Arena - (AFP via Getty Images)

Dozens of Reddit communities have banned links to social network X following the inauguration of Donald Trump, during which Elon Musk made a controversial gesture which some have compared to a “Nazi-style salute”.

Many of Reddit’s most popular subreddits are among those to have banned X links, including r/NBA (15 million), r/formula1 (4.8 million), r/nintendo (2.8 million), r/comics (2.8 million) and r/disneyland (1.2 million).

Some have put the question to their members, posting polls as to whether X links should be banned, while others have had the decision made by their moderation teams.

“X has become increasingly hateful, toxic and less and less moderated. This has, in turn, made us less comfortable with letting our subreddit link it to other people. Not to mention the distasteful things Elon Musk has done recently,” an /r/pcgaming moderator wrote in a Reddit post announcing that community’s blacklisting.

“While we try our best to stay neutral and apolitical, we do not believe taking a stance against Nazi symbolism is or should be a political issue. Hate speech and the promotion of it has never been tolerated in our community,” reads the announcement post from the NBA subreddit.

More than 100 subreddits have made the move.

What are some of the Subreddits which have banned X links:

  1. AFCBournemouth
  2. AmongUs
  3. Amsterdam
  4. Antiwork
  5. Arizona
  6. Berkeley
  7. BG3Builds
  8. Bobdylan
  9. Calamitymod
  10. Casualnintendo
  11. Childfree
  12. Comicbookmovies
  13. Comics
  14. Destiny
  15. Discoelysium
  16. Discworld
  17. Disneyland
  18. Dndnext
  19. Dragonage
  20. Formula1
  21. Georgia
  22. Greenday
  23. Guildwars2
  24. Hozier
  25. Ironmaiden
  26. Kingdomhearts
  27. Law
  28. LiverpoolFC
  29. Military
  30. Massachusetts
  31. Monsterhunter
  32. NBA
  33. Newjersey
  34. NFL
  35. Nintendo
  36. NYYankees
  37. Onednd
  38. Onepiece
  39. PCgaming
  40. Poirot
  41. Rupaulsdragrace
  42. SaintsFC
  43. Ska
  44. Steamdeck
  45. Spiderman
  46. Streetfighter
  47. Taylorswift
  48. Therapists
  49. Ultraman
  50. Warhammer
  51. Wow
  52. Xenoblade_Chronicles
  53. XMen

Other large communities including r/dnd are currently holding polls or conversations about instating a ban.

Support for users is not solely rooted in the actions of X’s owner, but also in that the social network requires a login to see posts.

"The radical leftists are really upset that they had to take time out of their busy day praising Hamas to call me a Nazi,” Musk tweeted, in response to accusations he made the Nazi gesture.

He has previously proclaimed support for Germany’s AfD, a political party recognised as a far-right extremist group in the German state of Saxony, after its appeal was rejected by the Saxon Higher Administrative Court in January 2025.

Musk has also claimed he will fund legal support for Tommy Robinson, the right-far activist and EDL co-founder jailed for contempt of court in 2024, as reported by The i Paper.

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