[MOD POST] Links To X

Hi All- First off, I am WELL aware that people feel quite passionately about this issue. It’s a discussion on many PL (and non-sports) subreddits, and each subreddit will make their own decision.

To me, one of the most important factors in this decision is not the raw upvote count, but the percentage of upvotes. It has remained steady since the discussion began, and is generally in-line with our subreddits views on past hot-button issues. It is clear that the vast majority of our users would like to ban links to X.

BUT (and this is a VERY big BUT) the reality remains that X is one of (if not the) best place for breaking news within the world of sports, and there is no real replacement/alternative at the moment. Very few teams from any sport are making an active presence on places like Bluesky, etc, and I personally don’t think that will change any time soon.

So what do we do? A blanket ban, making discussion on breaking news wait until another news source publishes it?

No ban at all, and keep giving traffic to a company with very questionable leadership?

I’ll take the middle-ground on this one. Direct links to X will be banned from the subreddit until further notice. This stops direct traffic, and honestly, external links to that app in particular are pretty terrible from a user experience POV.

Screenshots/grabs from X will be permitted. Yes, it’s 2 additional steps (take screenshot, upload to reddit), but it allows us to continue having breaking news, rumors and the general terribleness that is Fabrizio Romano’s lies and fantasies.

I know some of you won’t like this decision. I know some of you are going to trot out comments about me being over-bearing and authoritarian and stuff like that.

Feel free to comment away if that makes you feel better. I feel this is a reasonable balance, and hopefully we can now refocus on the team we all love.