After a movement spread across a number of sports communities on Reddit Tuesday, two of the social media site’s largest sports-focused communities have banned users from creating posts that link to X (formerly Twitter).
According to Reddit threads posted by moderators of the NFL and NBA subreddits on Wednesday, users will no longer be allowed to create posts that link directly to or screenshot X posts. The ban also extends to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads on r/NBA.
The movement, which seems to have started in the r/hockey subreddit before spreading to the NFL, NBA, and MLB communities, sought to eliminate posts that would direct users to X. One cited reason for the change was a login requirement that would force users to be logged in to an X account before viewing the linked content. However, many Reddit users and moderators also cited X’s ownership situation as a factor.
Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter in April of 2022 before renaming the site X, made gestures evoking Nazi symbolism during a political rally earlier this week. These events were repeatedly cited by both Reddit users and moderators as a determining factor in the X ban.
From the announcement on r/NBA:
“We have reached this decision after taking recent events and strong sentiment from our community into account. 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.”
The r/NFL community gave similar reasoning in their announcement:
“There has been much discussion in recent days about the platform and actions of its owner. But it has been a point of contention on this subreddit for a long time and for other reasons.
“For most of this subreddit’s history, these downsides have been understood by the userbase as being inconvenient but necessary. However, in light of recent events and the continuing path that platform is taking to make the user experience for Redditors less than ideal, combined with news sources also moving to other sites, X/Twitter links are no longer allowed on r/NFL.”
The bans will have widespread implications for those that rely on traffic generated from Reddit for engagement. Wednesday’s decisions may further encourage journalists, leagues, and teams to explore other social media platforms — though there seems to be some hurdles to clear before doing so.
And for users of those Reddit communities, the top posts may look much different than before. X posts were regularly among the most popular in those communities. They often included links to breaking news from reporters, or video clips and highlights that were of interest to users. Active posters will now need to find alternatives when creating content about these topics.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.