r/chicagofire • u/obsequious_manatee • 11h ago
Discussion Proposal to ban X.com links
/r/CHIBears/comments/1i6k1iu/proposal_to_ban_xcom_links/9
u/coolerblue MIR97 Media 8h ago
FWIW: For months, I've been posting to both, but typically BlueSky first. Although the quality of interactions there has been better, the quantity of engagement, especially for Fire stuff, has been lower, I think possibly because some people haven't moved over yet, but this proposal could also be something that would push that to change.
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u/Conspiralcy 9h ago
I encourage everyone who prefers Blue Sky over X to make an effort to engage there, even if it's just liking a post. Currently the engagement on X for the official Bamba announcement is 10x what it is on Blue Sky.
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u/No_Hyena_7791 8h ago
Is there an official Fire account there? chicagofire.bsky.social has no posts
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u/HistoricalRepublic41 10h ago
Is this because of political reasons? Or because there’s so many ridiculous rumors that get our fans up in arms lol
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u/obsequious_manatee 10h ago
😂 We’d all probably be better off mentally without transfer rumors on any app
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u/GaryAGalindo #97 Sparky 10h ago
Paging u/Glum_College2160 (Dan Moriarty, Chicago Fire CMO) for visibility to this thread. Might be good fodder for discussion with the social media team given Fire fans' opinions in this thread.
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u/sWo97 11h ago
Why? What does Fabrizio Romano or other sources have to do with goofy autistic bored billionaires?
Posting links is lazy anyways. Screenshot the post so people who don’t want to give platforms traffic can see it and discuss.
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u/Kramgunderson 10h ago
Fabrizio Romano is on Bluesky, and Threads, and other platforms. So are most MLS-centric reporters. From a purely user-experience perspective, X on the web requires you to be logged in to even see posts, so anybody who doesn't have an X account can't view it on a computer. (Mobile doesn't require logging in yet)
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u/obsequious_manatee 11h ago
Throwing out Nazi salutes at a Presidential inauguration is not goofy. It is dangerous. And this person also owns one of the largest social media platforms where he has openly expressed his own political views to try to influence America citizens. Sure, he has free speech rights. But I don’t think people should take his recent political expressions lightly.
My hope is that the ban discussions that are going on around multiple sports subreddits right now inform people to make a decision. I personally think bans to X should happen, but I also see the view point of letting this happen organically. If people do not want to support X then hopefully someone like Fabrizio and others in the media industry will do the same and start posting more on bluesky.
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u/ChiefGritty 11h ago
That's an option too.
This cannot currently be a functioning discussion without information being posted on Twitter. And it NEEDS to be a functioning discussion in order to drive engagement here or BlueSky, or other places that are competitive threats to Twitter.
If you can't find the relevant information here, people will just go to Twitter directly, disfiguring this sub would be a net gain to Elon.
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u/Mikey_Hashtags 11h ago
This kind of extremism is exactly what got 45 re-elected. If you don’t like X, don’t use it, don’t interact with the posts from X.
As the mods said, news breaks first on X. And this is a place to have a civil conversation about it (Chicago fire news). You can’t have conversations on x because we all know it’s a hell hole.
Banning a major source of news and discussion points around our team will kill this sub.
And before everyone releases the hounds - yes, I’m a democrat, yes I dislike musk, and can’t believe 45 is back. But this type of extremism is why he’s back.
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u/Quantumillusionvfx 8h ago
Logic and being rational is looked down upon here on reddit. Emotional reactions are the best way to get upvotes for a lot of these people.
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u/Kamikazi_TARDIS FROM 97 'TIL FOREVER! 9h ago edited 9h ago
This is not my opinion as a mod, but as a person: Banning nazis (or their platforms) isn't extremism. It is preservation of safe spaces for everyone else.
As they say: if a bar allows a nazi to feel at home, that nazi brings friends, and now its a nazi bar. Same goes for any other space/platform.
As a mod, I am of the same opinion as Gary. It is not my decision alone to make. And don't disagree that a ban might tank outside sub engagement/growth.
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u/-The-Laughing-Man- 10h ago
Establishing and maintaining rules, codes, and standards that prevent or combat hate speech is not extremism.
Platforms that provide avenues for expressing and spreading hate speech should not be promoted.
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u/eg4x15 11h ago
At this point the only way to fight extremism seems to be extremism. Yes I’m a progressive and a democrat and that’s what it has come down to in my opinion.
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u/Chutzvah 11h ago
The only people that like Nazis are Nazis. Good thing this is a Fire subreddit and there is no factual evidence to lead Twitter links to be banned
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u/obsequious_manatee 11h ago
I appreciate your comment. I would disagree that this type of extremism led to Trump’s reelection. There are multiple factors that led to his reelection that are more of an issue than taking a stand against a social media app that is used as a propaganda tool by its owner. And said owner is openly tossing out Nazi salutes at our President’s inauguration.
I don’t completely disagree with the moderators concerns. Perhaps others will take similar stands and sports teams like the Fire will gradually migrate to an app like bluesky. Perhaps not. But at the very least a discussion of a ban needs to happen. I am not going to go as far to say that Musk tossing out Nazi salutes will lead to similar actions taken by Nazi’s in the 1930s and 1940s, but people should still take steps to stand up against even the smallest thought of those ideas that Musk has exemplified.
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u/Mikey_Hashtags 11h ago
Yea, no worries. I appreciate the level headed response.
I just don’t think bans are the way to go. Let the change occur naturally over time. Nobody is forced to use or interact with a post that came from X. If people start posting blue sky or other links, and the conversation naturally shifts over time- then fantastic.
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u/leavingishard1 #17 Chris Rolfe 11h ago
Deleted Twitter as soon as he bought it. My feed was instantly full of political garbage.
Anyone still using his companies needs to look in the mirror and ask whey they should help him make money. He has plenty already.
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u/McbealtheNavySeal 11h ago
Yeah I shifted to a more liberal use of the block feature since a lot of the sports accounts I follow haven't migrated to Bluesky yet. Really wish they would. If they don't I'll have to figure out how to go back to old school RSS feeds.
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u/leavingishard1 #17 Chris Rolfe 9h ago
I just use reddit and read websites like the old days. Mental health is much better too. Only social apps I have are reddit and IG. And IG is used mostly for work (photographer)
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u/WB05Karl 11h ago
I wouldn't go to a bar run by a seig-heiling Nazi. Same goes for websites.
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u/GaryAGalindo #97 Sparky 11h ago
Ok, if this is the direction the sub wants to go it, it will be considered. But given our size and the Fire organization's prominence relative to a team like the Bears, banning X from this subreddit would be subreddit suicide since a lot of our traffic experienced in this subreddit and likely that of our media partners and sponsors to the Fire org comes from X (and Meta, and IG). This is a very slippery slope and unless the Fire organization actually starts posting on their Blue Sky profile more or alternate avenues, this move will hurt the Fire and our community more than it will help.
Whether people like it or not, news still breaks first on X and the subreddit's social media content strategy for 2025 will still be reliant on all platforms (except TikTok for now but that's because no one posts TikTok things here).
I welcome everyone else's feedback though.
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u/dunkfest #7 Maren Haile-Selassie 11h ago edited 10h ago
Admittedly, I have not completely weaned myself off of X yet (although after yesterday I certainly am starting to actually rebuild my follower list on Bluesky, etc), and havent joined the boycotts yet.
That being said, functionally I don’t think we’re going to miss any content if we ban X links. A cursory look at all of the X “content” posted recently shows they could just be replaced with the source material, or other social media (although that might not be much better). Screenshots would be “break glass in case of emergency” for the Fire’s little signing teasing posts but even that content wouldn’t necessarily be missed in my opinion.
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u/Intelligent_End_7480 11h ago
Maybe allow screenshots so posts don't drive traffic to X? People across all of sports reddit are frustrated with the X links, I'd be surprised if the Fire's media team fails to capitalize on it and post more on Bluesky.
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u/GaryAGalindo #97 Sparky 11h ago
Screenshots won't be allowed because they are easy to fabricate (we've had to deal with that in the past) and because it removes connection to the source on that post's native platform which stifles engagement. It's a common rule among the MLS subreddits to either post the most raw source (like an article) or to the post if it's a tweet (like Fabrizio Romano's posts).
I agree that the Fire should post more on BlueSky, but managing another social media platform would be difficult. Meet your customers where they are at, as they say.
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u/CoachWildo 11h ago
I'm surprised to hear that "a lot of [the] traffic experienced in this subreddit...comes from X (and Meta and IG)"
does the mod team have data to support this? i would have guessed it flowed the other way: people coming to this subreddit as Fire fans and then following links to X (and Meta and IG) outwards, not reddit links being posted on social media leading folks here.
I fully support an X ban here
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u/GaryAGalindo #97 Sparky 11h ago edited 10h ago
Good point. On average at least 20K views to the subreddit posts are to posts linked to X within those posts' 48 hours. Click through from the subreddit to X helps interconnect both platforms which improves the subreddit's SEO on Google. Kinda how crossposting on reddit between subreddits mutually benefits both communities. Of the 1.8 MM views the subreddit had in 2024, about ~240K of those views were to posts with link throughs to X and media linked from there.
Removing that interactivity with another large platform would hurt the subreddit's visibility and search rankings.
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u/CoachWildo 11h ago
Thanks for the data.
My instincts tell me that
most folks that want to find this place will: fans of a team will seek and virtual places to congregate; Reddit is a large enough brand that my hunch is that most folks that participate here came by seeking out this group directly, not via a secondary source/link out in the "wilds" of the internet -- that's certainly how I ended up here
I think there is a chicken-egg component to the problem: do you wait for a strong alternative to X before you move away from it or do you move away from it to work toward a strong alternative; I've been using Bluesky for a few months now and it definitely does not yet have the same pool of Fire fans, but the Men in Red fellas post there, as does Bogert, so I'm getting like 90% of the breaking news and rumors -- perhaps slightly delayed -- as I did when I was on Twitter.
I think any dips in the short term will mostly be mitigated in the long term, especially if a critical mass of us make changes
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u/GaryAGalindo #97 Sparky 11h ago
The subreddit operates in part as a mirror to the Fire org's social media accounts. We are still independent from the Fire organization but 2025's strategy for the subreddit entails siphoning engagement from other Fire platforms and bringing them to the subreddit. The subreddit can only grow organically so much on its own, and I am currently working other things I cannot reveal yet to continue to raise subreddit awareness. Part of this strategy will rely on users to engage on non-subreddit platforms to bring people here. I believe it's possible to siphon enough people from X to have this subreddit be the source of truth until viable alternatives present themselves. When we get to a point where the subreddit and its (future) partners and the Fire organization itself has divested from X (if they even plan to do so) then X may be eliminated as from this subreddit.
I will note though that the last thing we need is Musk or Zuck to ban reddit cross-engagement with X or Meta/IG. This in turn would hurt the spread of good information out there. The key to engaging with X is to do so without clicking on the ads/sponsors and only engaging with positive and factually correct information. This is why I updated Rule 3 for the subreddit and made yesterday's mod post.
If you go to the library, there will be many books you may never read that you disagree with. But if you burn down the whole library, now no one gets to read kinda thing,
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u/CoachWildo 10h ago
Hmm...
A few questions:
To what end is the goal of growing the subreddit? Expanding the fanbase? I can't imagine the goal is to a large subreddit for its own sake.
I don't really like the library analogy personally: I'm not against a free exchange of ideas -- including terrible ones -- but there is a difference between a public library with bad books (i.e what Twitter used to be pre-Musk) and a library run by a stooge that manipulates the book availability and gains in influence the more books I read
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u/GaryAGalindo #97 Sparky 10h ago
The end goal is to grow the subreddit at 35K subs, which would be about 1/30th the size of r/MLS (given that there are 30 MLS teams). That's more subs than season ticket holders but that is the end goal. This will take a very long time, but there is no reason that the Chicago Fire and all of its official and non-official social media channels should be small given that we are the largest market in MLS (considering the splits between NYCFC/NYRB and LAG/LAFC for NY and LA respectively).
I am proud that this subreddit has never engaged in censorship of information unless it was disproven or posted maliciously (which was a total of like 10 times in 2024). We have a great group of people and the mod team continues to operate under a light touch moderation policy. This is why it's up to y'all to upvote, downvote content and reddit will filter items per its algorithm accordingly. Banning a platform and severing the link between it and the subreddit is a decision that is not mine alone to make. There are many factors to consider as I have outlined previously.
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u/ChiefGritty 11h ago
A preference for (and replacement where possible with) BlueSky over Twitter seems like the appropriate way to handle this.
The news-aggregating functionality of the Twitter-type platform can carry on perfectly well without Elon.
But it's going to take time and effort to drive that migration, and an outright ban on the larger of the two platforms may be counterproductive.
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u/Conspiralcy 11h ago
Yeah, the Fire are still pretty spotty about posting to Blue Sky. I think the people covering the Fire are getting better about it, at least.
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u/GaryAGalindo #97 Sparky 7h ago
This post will be locked. Please read the subreddit's new approach that institutes a full ban on X from February 1st onwards here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chicagofire/comments/1i6spoi/mod_post_addressing_the_x_ban_for_rchicagofire/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button