SAO PAULO — The blocking of social media platform X in Brazil divided users and politicians over the legitimacy of the ban, and many Brazilians had difficulty and doubts over navigating other social media in its absence.
The shutdown of Elon Musk’s platform started early last Saturday, making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through mobile apps after the billionaire refused to name a legal representative to the country, missing a deadline imposed by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. The blockade marks an escalation in a monthslong feud between Musk and de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation.
Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, with tens of millions of users.
“I’ve got the feeling that I have no idea what’s happening in the world right now. Bizarre,” entertainment writer and heavy X user Chico Barney wrote on Threads. Threads is a text-based app developed by Instagram that Barney was using as an alternative. “This Threads algorithm is like an all-you-can-eat restaurant where the waiter keeps serving things I would never order.”
Bluesky, a social media platform launched last year as an alternative to X, and other more established sites have seen a large influx of Brazilians in the past couple of days. Bluesky said last Friday that about 200,000 new users from Brazil signed up during that time, and the number “continues to grow by the minute.”
X is less prevalent in Brazil than Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok. However, it remains an important platform on which Brazilians engage in political debates and is highly influential among politicians, journalists and other opinion-makers.
De Moraes said X would stay suspended until it complied with his orders. He also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access it. Some legal experts questioned the grounds for that decision and how it would be enforced. Others suggested the move was authoritarian.
The Brazilian Bar Association said last Friday in a statement that it would request the Supreme Court review the fines imposed on all citizens using VPNs or other means to access X without due process. Brazil’s bar association argued that sanctions should only be imposed summarily after ensuring an adversarial process and the right to full defense.
“I’ve used VPNs a lot in authoritarian countries like China to continue accessing news sites and social networks,” Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said on the platform before its shutdown. “It never occurred to me that this tool would be banned in Brazil. It’s dystopian.”
A search last Friday on X showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could enable them to continue using the platform by making it appear they are logging on from outside the country.
“Tyrants want to turn Brazil into another commie dictatorship, but we won’t back down. I repeat: do not vote on those who don’t respect free speech. Orwell was right,” right-wing congressman Nikolas Ferreira, one of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s closest allies, published before X went off. Musk replied with an emoji suggesting agreement: 100.
Ferreira is a 28-year-old YouTuber who received the most votes of the 513 elected federal lawmakers in the 2022 election. De Moraes ordered the block of his social media accounts after a mob of Bolsonaro supporters attacked Brazil’s Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court in January 2023, seeking to overturn the election.
Lawmaker Bia Kicis said, “The consequences of Alexandre de Moraes’ attacks on Elon Musk, X and Starlink will be regrettable for Brazilians.” She also urged Rodrigo Pacheco, the president of the country’s Senate, to act. Kicis has repeatedly urged Pacheco to open impeachment proceedings against the Supreme Court justice.
“We need to leave this state of apathy and stop the worst from happening,” the pro-Bolsonaro lawmaker, whose profiles were temporarily blocked by de Moraes in 2022, also said.
The former president said on Instagram that X’s departure from Brazil was “another blow to our freedom and legal security.”
Last Friday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva backed de Moraes’ decision and criticized Musk for acting as though he was above the law during an interview with Radio MaisPB.
“Any citizen, from anywhere in the world, who has investments in Brazil, is subject to the Brazilian Constitution and laws. Therefore, if the Supreme Court has decided for citizens to comply with certain things, they either have to comply or take another course of action,” Lula said.
