Elon Musk is no fan of content moderation. When Musk acquired Twitter back in 2022, one of the driving forces behind his decision to buy the social media platform was content moderation, especially involving bans on right-wing accounts that he liked.
Now, Musk appears to be trying to exert control over content moderation on social media platforms he doesn’t even own.
According to a new report in The Verge, Musk privately contacted Reddit CEO Steve Huffman regarding content on the social sharing platform.
Shortly after the correspondence between Musk and Huffman, a thread about DOGE employees was deleted. The subreddit where the thread was started, r/WhitePeopleTwitter, was also banned for 72 hours.
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Before Musk reached out to the Reddit CEO, the owner of X went on a public tirade against Reddit. Among his complaints, Musk claimed that certain Reddit users had “broken the law” for posting unsavory comments about DOGE employees. The Reddit comments referenced Musk’s post appear to belong to the Reddit thread that the company deleted after Musk reached out.
While Reddit previously made it known that it took action against “violent content,” it wasn’t known until now that Musk had personally filed a complaint with the company’s CEO.
Musk has also called it “insane” that some subreddits had banned the ability to post links to X. It’s unclear if Musk brought that complaint up in his messages with Huffman. As of publishing, no action has been taken against subreddits that don’t allow X links.
While some of the comments in the thread could be perceived as threatening and taken down regardless, it’s concerning that Musk can make private requests to CEOs of third-party companies regarding content decisions.
“We take any report of Reddit policy violations seriously, whether on Reddit directly or through other public or private means,” Reddit said in a statement provided to The Verge. “We will evaluate content reported to us and take action if it violates.”
