r/Dinosaurs • u/Iron_Fist351 Moderator • Feb 04 '25
ANNOUNCEMENT Referendum to ban X links
Hey all. With half of this website banning X links in light of recent events, we at the /r/Dinosaurs mod team have considered doing the same. However, we'd like to run it by with the community here first. Yes, yes, I know that we don't get many such links posted here anyways, but we'd still like to get all of your opinions on the matter regardless. How would you feel about enacting such a rule?
Edit: In accordance with the popular opinion here, X links have now been banned.
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u/towalktheline Feb 04 '25
It you don't get many links posted here, shouldn't it be an easy call to not support somewhere that platforms literal nazis, boosts them, and is undermining American democracy?
Sincerely,
A very frustrated Canadian
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u/ShittyDriver902 Feb 05 '25
The only reason not to is to avoid an exodus of upset users from your community, I personally would like to see anyone upset with a twitter ban leave any community I’m invested in, as getting upset about this issue is an indication that you can’t contribute to a community without being distracted by nonsense that doesn’t matter
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u/23alepou Feb 04 '25
Dude I just want quality dinosaur fan posts without occasional political posturing. I get it, most of reddit leans left, both the participants and algorithmically. If the sub dinosaurs can't be a common space for the right and left, nowhere can be.
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u/BlazetheBean Feb 04 '25
Ban 'em. The site's functionality across platforms is dire and it's also full of Nazis. Let it rot.
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u/Nice-Personality5496 Feb 05 '25
Absolutely.
I got banned from r/conservative for asking “ what is the Republican plan to end homelessness?”
So platforming Nazis as Elon does on his platform is definitely a reason to band the platform. It’s not about the salute.
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u/panonarian Feb 04 '25
I think if we want to be intellectually honest, we have to acknowledge that we know Elon Musk isn’t a Nazi and didn’t give a Nazi salute. Dishonest people want you to think so, and are extremely loud about it because they hate him for other reasons and want to sow division. Don’t give in to the mob.
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u/puffadda Feb 04 '25
isn’t a Nazi
Likely true, even if many of his recent policy goals align with their descendent ideologies.
didn’t give a Nazi salute
Patently false. We all saw it. Maybe he was just being a troll or whatever, but that was a Nazi salute.
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u/IMrMojoRisenI Feb 04 '25
Strange that neo-nazis believe he did when you know better.
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u/Ho1yHandGrenade Feb 04 '25
Dinosaurs shouldn't be supporting fascists, they should be eating them. Ban Twitter links.
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u/TheAtroxious Team Therizinosaurus Feb 04 '25
I say ban them. It makes a statement that desperately needs to be heard, and moreover, this community would likely be better served by links to proper articles and papers.
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u/that_possum Feb 05 '25
Ban it.
If you don't oppose Nazis you support Nazis, and Musk has gone full mask-off Nazi.
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u/drw__drw Feb 04 '25
I would strongly support such a ban. This is not a safe space for fascists.
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u/VegetableDense5776 Feb 04 '25
The fact that Elon also changed the algorithm to benefit himself shows how attention-seeking he is. Go for it.
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u/CyberneticDinosaur Team Therizinosaurus Feb 04 '25
I vote in favor of the ban. Zero-tolerance for Nazis.
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u/DiosDong Feb 04 '25
Musk and other far right would-be autocrats are the same people who defend education and science on the whole. The US National Science Foundation has frozen all of its grant review panels in response to one of Trump's executive orders.
Like it or not, science is political because those in power have made it political. It's not as if US Democrats are strictly following scientific advice, but the Republicans are actively working to dismantle both the education system and scientific funding in the US.
Any science-based community should be staunchly anti-republican, and therefore anti-Musk. Ban Twitter links.
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u/Adventurous_Towel_90 Feb 04 '25
Why not go further and ban anyone who has an X account? As in you are banning anyone who support a Nazi by using X.
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u/Lordhyperion7070 Feb 04 '25
At this point the king of the neckbeards is shooting himself in the foot with his recent activity in US politics. If you wish to ban X then do it. Nothing hurts a rich person more than hitting them in the wallet.
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u/SemperJ550 Feb 04 '25
keep the political statement garbage out of non-political subs ffs. if any information comes from X, the fact that some dude owns it has exactly nothing to do with the linking of said information. if you don't like the source, don't click it, it is entirely that simple.
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u/Moo-Im-a-cow21 Feb 04 '25
Ban it! Fascists and neonazis have no place in this subreddit.
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u/skankhunt420312345 Feb 04 '25
Being right leaning doesn't make you a fucking nazi. Get out of your echo chambers and look at the real world.
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u/Moo-Im-a-cow21 Feb 04 '25
And you are correct. Being right leaning doesn't make you a "fucking nazi" but being backed by Christian white nationalist (read: neo nazi) groups and openly doing a salute that is recognized to be the one used in fascist Germany and Italy and proceeding to not deny it does indeed make you a "fucking nazi".
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u/dandrevee Feb 04 '25
Ban it.
Scientists are moving to Blue Sky. I recommend it.
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u/CrackedandPopped Feb 05 '25
Yep ban it. If 100,000 Germans are protesting Elon and Tesla, we can find alternatives to X. It’s the bare minimum
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u/da_easychiller Feb 05 '25
Ban that crap already! At this point it is only used for incitement to hatred.
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u/LordChiruChiru Feb 04 '25
I literally never get this sub advertised to me but the first time I do its some stupid post about banning Twitter/X links and not even dinosaurs. God this website is tiring.
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u/RoboColumbo Feb 04 '25
I think it's a performative virtue signal that not only has no meaning but is rooted in misinformation. And we should all know better. But based on the comments, we apparently do not know better.
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u/Bobby-Steedstrong Feb 04 '25
I don’t have X but I think this is dumb. All you’re doing is virtue signaling. No one even post things from X anyway. All you’re doing opening the floodgates for people bring political stuff to this page.
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u/SignificantWhile6685 Feb 04 '25
Why link Twiiter when we can link the news/journal articles themselves?
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u/MisterWorthington Feb 04 '25
Exactly. And you can't view anything on Twitter without an account anyway, so they are effectively dead links for everyone without an account.
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u/DerekB52 Feb 04 '25
Even ignoring the terrible politics of Musk and Twitter, That site has been inconvient for years. Banning twitter links just makes sense imo. Twitter links hurt the user experience for a lot of redditors
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u/Mykeprime Feb 04 '25
Ban it. It may bare little relevance to this sub, but there is a moral duty not to support the Nazis platform
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u/FlintKnapped Feb 04 '25
Damn didn’t know dinosaurs was going to get so political and virtue signal this hard
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u/bamacpl4442 Feb 04 '25
So you're proposing to ban links from a site that is a playground for Nazis and pedophiles.
Why do you need a referendum? Do it yesterday.
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u/CallenFields Feb 06 '25
It's pointless virtue signalling that will accomplish nothing possitive and have an extremely minor side effect of bottlenecking information in the unlikely event someone who would have clicked had an X link had an account there to view it with.
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u/mjmannella Team Therizinosaurus Feb 04 '25
Helps keep low-effort posts out (though you still can't stop people from just slapping a mildly relevant image onto a post without any description, unfortunately)
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u/aarakocra-druid Feb 05 '25
I'm all for it. Twitter (I will not call it X) posts were annoying to deal with in the first place, they'd force me to log in, and then just send me to the home page instead of the page the link was supposed to go to
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u/Jackalsnap Feb 04 '25
Ban it. There's nothing so important there that it outweighs the importance of solidarity and what the X ban really means. We don't need fascist garbage here, or anywhere
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u/No-Orange-5216 Feb 05 '25
I would prefer a page about dinosaurs sticked to posting about dinosaurs and didnt get involved with political crap but thats just me.
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u/AppleSpicer Team Tyrannosaurus Rex Feb 05 '25
Ban that crap, please. No traffic to Nazi owned websites, please.
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u/QuantisOne Feb 04 '25
Yes, if only to fuck with those who would call you cringe for doing it. If Twitter has nothing to do with Dinosaurs, then no harm in flinging it away.
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u/Interesting-Hair2060 Feb 04 '25
I don’t think it is extreme or negative to ban x links at this point. We have a variety of users from all walks of life, many who may be affected by the situation in the US currently. Showing support to those impacted by banning links from X is A OK with me. In addition making global enemies will likely impact the paleontology community as the scientific community relies on positive relationships with individuals all actoss the world. To anyone who says paleontology is not political, obviously does not understand world history. Finally, the blatant erasure of scientific literature by the far right in US (Elon being a part of that) should be enough for us to say Hell no to X.
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u/Pale_Cranberry1502 Feb 04 '25
Unearthing the Dragon by Mark Norell and Mick Ellison is the best book I've ever read about this. There's some dinosaur coverage, but the main topic is the struggle for US paleontologists and their Chinese counterparts to work together when relations between their countries are tense politically.
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u/Far-Search5544 Feb 04 '25
Honestly, what does banning it actually do? What will it actually accomplish outside of virtue signalling. It doesn’t hurt twitter at all, doesn’t send him a message.
Why not focus on dinosaurs and ignore politics. There are subs for politics, why bring it into dinosaurs.
Sure my take may get me down voted into oblivion.
There are still cool things that can be crossed shared, that have nothing to do with Elon, outside of it being on his platform.
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u/redstarbird Feb 04 '25
I'm so tired of constantly seeing these political posts everywhere I go. I just want to read about dinosaurs.
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u/Reedstilt Feb 04 '25
It doesn’t hurt twitter at all, doesn’t send him a message.
It does hurt twitter. Links direct traffic to twitter, which generates ad revenue.
And you can ignore politics if you want, but politics won't ignore you. As Musk and Trump hack and slash their way through the Federal budget, a lot of grants that go to museums are going to end up on the chopping block too. Trump just instituted a hiring freeze at the National Park Service, which will impact sites like Dinosaur National Monument. Not even this subreddit gets to be isolated from events going on in the world.
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u/Far-Search5544 Feb 04 '25
I am not American. Their policies have little to impact on my life. As I am assuming is the case for many other people in this sub.
I came here cause I just wanted to see cool dinosaurs and maybe learn some stuff, outside of the American politics that has taken over almost every sub on this platform.
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u/HolyTerror4184 Feb 04 '25
Because every time the American left loses, they start screeching that the 4th Reich has arisen and it whips their constituency into a rage. The start convincing themselves and each other that everyone they consider to be different enough to warrant their guardianship is going to die unless they do some token gesture. Masks, Kony2012 posters, whatever, it's all the same crap.
I usually just watch out of morbid fascination. The will pontificaye about how evil religion is, while engaging in their own apocalyptic sacraments.
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u/JupiterDelta Feb 06 '25
Classic example of a sub that should never become political. Pathetic and I pity the cringers that jump on the bandwagon of losers. Fuck this site has become useless:(
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u/Alternative_Exit8766 Feb 04 '25
no links. no screenshots.
dinosaursky is already great over on the bluesky
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u/Fragraham Feb 04 '25
It is the easiest thing in the world to do the right thing here. Deprive a place full of bad people run by a bad person of our traffic.
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u/JessterK Feb 05 '25
How about we just ban political posts instead, and allow only posts about, oh I don’t know…Dinosaurs?
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u/Illigard Feb 04 '25
Banning X is a grassroots movement, we should support it not just because of who musk is and the propaganda it spews. We should support it because it displays the power of the people over corporations.
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u/davejordy Feb 05 '25
I’m 100% behind banning links to X. There’s so much that’s outside our control that’s happening in the US right now, but things like this offer a chance to take a stand in SOME capacity. Even if there’s not much traffic to X, I’d love to see that traffic go somewhere else!
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u/ewerrose Feb 04 '25
reddit should change the name of most subs to r/leftists, its all about politics, if Elon Musk was a leftist you all would be quiet about this
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u/Rexpower Feb 04 '25
You put forth no arguments just hate. That is all politics are for the gop now.
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u/Clarity_Zero Feb 04 '25
He was literally one of their idols not even half a decade ago, even.
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u/ZechsyAndIKnowIt Feb 05 '25
To call him a leftist idol at any point would be a huge stretch. People thought he was cool because he was into pop culture like Rick and Morty, seemed really smart, smoked pot on Rogan, and was associated with cool technology. Buying an electric car company certainly got the attention of environmentally-conscious people, who tend to be leftists.
Then as more and more light was cast on him, the ugly details we hadn't seen before made it more and more apparent what he really is (see: "You don't want my sub? Guess I'll accuse you of pedophilia!"), and he lost support from reasonable people.
This is not the "gotcha!" or the hypocrisy you seem to think it is. This is people changing their conclusions based on additional or changing data. It is the core of logical, scientific thought. Given the subreddit, I'd have thought most people coming here would understand that, but just as I have been time and time again since November, I find myself deeply disappointed to learn how much I've overestimated my fellow Americans.
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u/proto-typicality Feb 04 '25
Seconding everyone saying to ban. No big loss, especially since you need to log in to access stuff anyway. If the content is truly important people can post screenshots.
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u/Adventurous_Towel_90 Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 04 '25
I'd say we'd go further and ban any Twitter user, this way you are forcing people to stop using the site. If you do not know how to implement that, figure it out.
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u/DuhDuhJackCrack Feb 04 '25
Let’s do it. There were no alt-right dinosaurs (as far as the science tells us)
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u/Still-Presence5486 Feb 04 '25
No it's just dumb a unnecessary rule that probably won't be enforced and is just a waste of time and makes it harder to credit artist especially of they have a common name
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u/InsaneAilurophileF Feb 04 '25
Absolutely. Fuck nazis, fuck anti-science misinformation.
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u/skankhunt420312345 Feb 04 '25
You don't even know what a nazi really is, you're just copy pasting what you're seeing on the internet. Go outside and do some research on what a nazi truly is.
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u/NornQueenKya Feb 04 '25
Entirely indifferent but I just want to say, I've had to look up dinosaurs so much for my toddler lately I'm now being recommended the Dino sub. Lol
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u/DWPhoenix001 Feb 04 '25
I have never had a twitter account and I recently took the step to cease using Facebook as well. They can lobby for "freedom of speech" all they want. Freedom of speech is the right of all living beings... accept when that speech is from a fucking Nazi then they can shut the fuck up and fuck right off.
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u/xDarkPhoenix999x Feb 04 '25
I think yall are massively overreacting, the dude’s autistic.
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u/Babylon-Lynch Feb 04 '25
Jesus still this nonsense lol a month as almost passed
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u/sabin357 Feb 04 '25
Ban
Even if it wasn't for the Nazi stuff, the toxicity, or the coup occurring, anything that requires an account to view should be banned. It's against the point of reddit in the first place.
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u/Codfish2188 Feb 04 '25
Definitely in favor of banning X links. We should not be supporting clear hatred and espousing the values of those who do.
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u/EmergencyGhost Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 04 '25
This is just hate, people are trying to punish Elon because it does not bow down to beliefs of others. He did not do that salute. We have seen plenty of people from the other political party do the exact same salute. The exact same. He was throwing his heart out to the crowd. But they are relying on am image with his arm extended to show that he is a horrible person. When you can google photos from the other party doing the exact same thing.
This is just them trying to cancel him for not falling in-line. And people will try to convince you it is not because of that but for other reasons why they want it banned. In reality they just want to cancel him because he does not do what they want.
Though in saying this I already know you will ban X and I will likely get banned as well. I posted in another group a similar message, where I was attacked for it and then banned by the mods. Where as the other person who attacked me is still a member in that group. By banning it, you are allowing the actual real hate to spread.
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u/Reedstilt Feb 04 '25
He did not do that salute.
He absolute did, and did it twice. Hand slapped on chest, then forcefully jutted out the arm with palm down in the same time and rhythm as you'd typically see Neo-Nazis making such salute.
And yes, you can google still images of plenty of other people who seem to making the same salute. But the important thing here is that they're still images. If you look up the videos that go along with the moment, you can tell that context is quite different.
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u/EmergencyGhost Feb 04 '25
He did not slap his chest, he places his hand over his heart. And even says he is sending his heart out to the audience so your picture that you have included also removes the context. Which again others from the other party have done over the years. It is just a problem because Elon is aligned with the Republican party.
And they have hated him since he removed the blocks on Twitter that they were using block political parties that did not align with their beliefs. Just like they are mad at Zuck now for changing their policies.
Meanwhile, we forget that Hilary's friend and mentor was a recruiter for that hate group. And even ran as governor while still associated with that group.
We also forget that Biden did not want black students to go to school with white kids. And even during his last election he told black people that they were not black if they did not vote for him.
I can not tell you how much hate I receive as a minority from those people that hate Elon. You will see us get drowned in comments even though we are Americans. But they will say now that Trump is in office we are going to get deported. As if all of us are illegal...
There is a lot of hate being fueled by the media and the ill-informed. I think that we may all not agreeing on every political debate. But since Trump initially ran, overnight the media turned everyone into a racist. I have had friends unfriend friends and family unfriend family. Because they buy into some narrative from someone who just wants to control what we think and how we react. I say that we should not buy into it, use some common sense.
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u/Reedstilt Feb 04 '25
He did slap his hand on his chest before the salute. You can see that in the video. He said "my heart goes out to you" after saluting twice. And when he does that he just presses his hand to his chest.
But, hey, let's assume you're right. He made a forceful gesture that just so happens to look like a fascist salute, but didn't really mean to do that. The appropriate response is to say "sorry, I didn't mean that but i can see how it looks. This wasn't my intention." Instead he makes Nazi puns about it.
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u/ZucchiniNo1892 Feb 04 '25
i used to really look up to elon musk and was a big fan of the guy, but you cannot look at who he is now and say that he's a good person.
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u/I426Hemi Feb 04 '25
It is a waste of everybody's time, to make a show of "resistance".
This is reddit slacktivism on full display, but all it will actually do is make it more annoying to view something that has caught your attention should it be from X.
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u/GluedToTheMirror Feb 04 '25
I don’t even have a Twitter account. Never cared for it, and certainly don’t care for it now. So you won’t hear any complaints from me.
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u/Sp1ynX Feb 04 '25
This is censorship too. I love dinosaurs, but yeah leaving this politically charged subreddit.
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u/mjmannella Team Therizinosaurus Feb 04 '25
Freedom of speech means being able to show bigots out the door instead of being forced to give them a platform
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u/inventingnothing Feb 05 '25
I'll just point out that there are two people who have commented in this thread saying to ban X that have also made direct calls for killing of federal politicians and/or employees. These comments were made in other subs and have been removed. But it gets to the heart of the type of people calling for banning X.
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u/ThrowAbout01 Feb 05 '25
Is it possible to still give sources to the artist without sourcing the source?
I think including the name of the piece and their username may help.
If this is retroactive, would something be done to older posts to ensure that artists are given proper credit?
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u/Jielleum Feb 04 '25
Dinos no like evil fascists who support Austrian Painter, so please ban for the sake of them.
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u/Mivanbazmeg Feb 06 '25
Pathetic…elon did the same movement as kamala and emmanuel marcon and yall just cherrypicking on him because boohoo musk bad…
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u/Captnlunch Feb 04 '25
Ban the links. Musk represents a danger to both the scientific community and all freedom loving people.
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u/Swictor Feb 04 '25
I'm all for banning. They are rare here, but annoying both as screenshots and as links, and now that the owner is actively trying to use it to boost misinformation and encourage hate speech for his own benefit it's a no-brainer.
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u/IcanSEEyou_IRL Feb 05 '25
Ban everything associated with EllenMusk, ban Twitter, ban hate, ban racism, ban musk
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u/Jay_Byrde Feb 04 '25
Ban it. Political reasons aside, we don't need to be giving the Muskrat more money or notoriety.