SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s blocking of social media platform X has divided users and politicians over the legitimacy of the ban, with many Brazilians on Saturday struggling and questioning how to navigate other social media without the ban.
The shutdown of Elon Musk’s platform began early Saturday, leaving it largely inaccessible on both the web and via mobile apps, after the billionaire refused to appoint a legal representative for the country, missing a deadline imposed by Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The blockade marks an escalation in a months-long feud between Musk and de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and disinformation.
Brazil is one of the largest markets for X, with tens of millions of users.
“I feel like I have no idea what’s going on in the world right now. Crazy,” entertainment writer and Heavy X user Chico Barney wrote on Threads. Threads is a text-based app developed by Instagram, which Barney used as an alternative. “This Threads algorithm is like an all-you-can-eat restaurant where the waiter keeps serving me things I would never order.”
Bluesky, a social media platform that launched last year as an alternative to X and other more established sites, has seen a large influx of Brazilians in recent days. The company said Friday that it has seen about 200,000 new users from Brazil sign up in that time, and the number “continues to grow by the minute.” Brazilian users are also setting records for activities such as followers and likes, Bluesky said.
Previous users of other platforms welcomed Brazilians into their ranks. “Hello literally everyone in Brazil,” wrote one user on Threads. “We are much nicer here than Twitter,” said another.
Platform migration is not new to Brazilians. They were big adopters of Orkut and when Orkut went bust, they were happy to move to other platforms.
X is not as popular in Brazil as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok. However, it remains an important platform on which Brazilians conduct political debates and is very influential among politicians, journalists and other opinion makers.
It’s also where they share their sense of humor. Many of the country’s most famous memes originate from posts on X before spreading to other social networks. Last week, for example, Brazilians collectively created an absurd storyline for a fictional telenovela, complete with a theme song created using artificial intelligence tools.
Pop stars and their fans were also affected by the fact that Brazilians were banned from the platform.
“Wait, a lot of my fan pages are Brazilian!!! Come back, wait a minute!!,” Cardi B said on X on Friday. A fan page dedicated to Timothée Chalamet, known as TimotheeUpdates, said it would temporarily stop updating because all of its admins are Brazilian.
De Moraes said X would remain suspended until it complied with his orders, and he also instituted a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies that use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access it. Some legal experts questioned the grounds for the decision and how it would be enforced. Others suggested the measure was authoritarian.
The Brazilian Bar Association said in a statement on Friday that it would ask the Supreme Court to review the fines imposed on all citizens who use VPNs or other means to access X without due process. The Brazilian Bar Association argued that sanctions should never be imposed summarily before an adversarial process and the right to a full defense are guaranteed.
“I have used VPNs extensively in authoritarian countries like China to maintain access to news sites and social networks,” Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at Rio de Janeiro State University, said on the platform before it was shut down. “It never occurred to me that these types of tools would be banned in Brazil. It is dystopian.”
On Friday, a search on X found hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that might allow them to continue using the platform while appearing to log in from abroad.
“Tyrants want to turn Brazil into a new communist dictatorship, but we will not give up. I repeat: do not vote for those who do not respect freedom of expression. Orwell was right,” right-wing congressman Nikolas Ferreira, one of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s closest allies, posted before X went off. Musk responded with an emoji suggesting a similarity: “100.”
Ferreira is a 28-year-old YouTuber who received the most votes out of the 513 elected federal legislators in the 2022 elections. De Moraes ordered his social media accounts blocked after a mob of Bolsonaro supporters attacked Brazil’s Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court in January 2023 in an attempt to overturn the election.
Lawmaker Bia Kicis said that “the consequences of Alexandre de Moraes’ attacks on Elon Musk, X and Starlink will be deplorable for Brazilians.” She also urged Rodrigo Pacheco, the president of the country’s Senate, to take action. Kicis has repeatedly urged Pacheco to initiate impeachment proceedings against the Supreme Court justice.
“We must leave this state of apathy and prevent the worst from happening,” said the pro-Bolsonaro lawmaker, whose profiles were temporarily blocked by the Moraes in 2022.
The former president said on Instagram on Saturday that X’s departure from Brazil was “another blow to our freedom and legal security.”
“It not only affects our freedom of expression, but also undermines the confidence of international companies to operate on Brazilian soil, with consequences ranging from national security to the quality of information that reaches our citizens,” Bolsonaro said.
On Friday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva backed De Moraes’ decision and criticized Musk for positioning himself as above the law during an interview with Radio MaisPB.
“Any citizen, anywhere in the world, who has investments in Brazil is subject to the Brazilian Constitution and Brazilian laws. If the Supreme Court has made a decision that citizens must comply with certain things, they must comply with them or follow another course of action,” Lula said. “Just because someone has a lot of money doesn’t mean they can’t respect it.”
Ana Júlia Alves de Oliveira, an 18-year-old student, said that many young people like her no longer watch the news or read newspapers, and rely solely on social media platforms like X for their news. Without this platform, she felt disconnected.
“I’ve kind of lost touch with what’s happening in the world,” she said. “I’ve also seen a lot of entertainment out there, so this is a new reality for me.”
___
Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese contributed from Sao Paulo.