It s a good move to prioritize our community s values : Elon Musk s Nazi salute is getting X links banned all over a rival social media site

Get the Full StoryElon Musk made national headlines after throwing a suspiciously familiar salute to close a speech at Donald Trump s inauguration, and while every white supremacist and their racist mama claim it was just a misunderstanding, many Americans are incredibly unnerved. The questionable gesture comes at a time when many fear a resurgence of fascism and see echoes of Nazi ideology in many of Trump s incoming policies. Resisting the government on a large scale doesn t feel possible, but everyday social media users over on Reddit have found a solution to the impotence many are feeling. Users might not be able to stop Trump from listening to Musk or prevent him from taking his place as the co-chair of D.O.G.E., but they can stop using his precious social media platform, X.com, and stop spreading links online. image via Miriambo BlueSky The ADL might claim that sieg heil-like gesture could have been anything, but everyday Americans and international folks paying attention to our political clown show are pretty sure they know what it was supposed to mean. After years of bashing Elon Musk, Redditors are using the Nazi connection to rally against his multibillion-dollar company and ban any links to X.com in their internet communities. The eXodus kicked off just over 24 hours after Musk s salute, starting in some very unusual places. Though it s almost impossible to track who started the trend, the first few posts this reporter saw came from subreddits like r Gunners and r LiverpoolIFC, sports communities with international user bases. Respecting the democratic process, users brought forth the suggestion to ban links from X.com. They debated the pros and cons of a sub-wide ban and added amendments allowing for screenshots and other workarounds before sub moderators unpaid workers who keep things running smoothly decided whether or not to enact the ban. Some subs like r NFL and r nba are still mulling the ban over, but many polls have shown that users are beyond enthusiastic to be rid of Musk s links. The call was relatively slow at first. Slowly, bigger subs representing cities like r Ontario joined the conversation. It was quiet democracy in action until one unlikely sub carried the movement into a sitewide conversation by forgoing debate and unilaterally stating, F this guy. X links are now banned from r Newjersey. That right. The New Jersey sub had the courage to up and ban a Nazi right out. The declaration lit a fire under other city subs like r Seattle and multiple subreddits from lovers of the game Animal Crossing to fans of Dungeons and Dragons and even PC gaming enthusiast all propositioning users to enact a full ban of links to X.com. While many still maintained the Democratic lean, Jersey s courage ignited an influx of other U.S. cities and states to rage against the machine. Even r Christianity joined the ban, announcing the ban by showing a gif of a Neo-Nazi saluting alongside Elon Musk. As a Christian conservative Republican I absolutely despise Musk, this didn t help his case, one user commented in the sub. Their comments were inundated with similar replies as disgusted users wanted nothing more than to be rid of X.com links. More than one was in favor of the ban just because users need accounts to view posts. The r BlackPeopleTwitter sub even put forth a motion to close the sub for good. Instead, users plan to mass migrate to BlueSky Social. Say what you will about Elon. At least he did one good thing; he killed Twitter, one user joked. It would do Americans mental health nothing but good to never have to see an X.com link again. Limiting engagement on other social media sites and deleting accounts might be a slow death for the platform, but it can encourage big advertisers to stop using the site to push their products. Apple hasn t advertised on the site in more than a year, and with BlueSky Social drawing in celebrities as well, there s no reason for those of us who find him intolerable to stick around.

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