Sao Paulo, Brazil – After a public dispute between Brazil’s Supreme Court and Tesla X owner Elon Musk, which on August 30 banned the social media company from operating in Brazil, many Brazilians began looking for alternative social platforms such as Bluesky and Threads.
Some others are still active on X, accessing the site through virtual private networks (VPNs), despite the potential fine of 50,000 Brazilian reals ($8,900).
Tensions escalated last month when Brazil’s Supreme Court accused X of refusing to comply with multiple orders to suspend posts and profiles for publishing fake news and hate speech, and further escalated when Musk refused to comply with a court order to appoint new legal representation for X in Brazil.
During the dispute, both Musk and Judge Alexander Demoras expressed their views on X, with Musk even saying explain“Demoras deserves to be imprisoned for his crimes.”
Last Thursday, as the deadline for appointing a new legal representative came to an end, Moraes ordered the platform to be banned in the country. On Monday, a Supreme Court panel unanimously upheld the order.
Read more: Musk fails to appoint new legal representative, X blocked in Brazil
Since then, many Brazilian 40 million X users have been looking for other alternatives.
Bluesky is a subsidiary of X (formerly Twitter) and has become the platform of choice for Brazilians who are banned from X. The company has received more than 2 million Since the lockdown, the app has seen a staggering 100% download growth among users in Brazil, becoming the country’s most downloaded app over the weekend.
On September 4, the company, which has more than 8 million users, Announce Of the 2.6 million new users added in the past few days, 85% are from Brazil, bringing the total number of Bluesky users in Brazil to 4 million.
also, Polls A study by digital consultancy Bites shows that Google searches for Bluesky have surpassed searches for the term “VPN,” which could indicate that most Brazilians would rather migrate to other platforms than risk using a VPN to access X.
Another X competitor, Threads, which is owned by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, may also see growth in users but has not released new figures since X was banned. The company currently has about 3.3 million users on the platform.
Meanwhile, billionaire Musk continues to attack Supreme Court Justice Moraes. call Musk created a profile on X called “Alexander’s File” to post all of the judges’ decisions regarding blocking posts and profiles that shared fake news and hate speech.
Musk argued that he refused to comply with the judge’s orders because they Censorship and an attack on free speech. Musk has been fined more than 18 million Brazilian reals ($3.2 million) for not complying with orders to suspend his accounts.
On Monday, a panel of four other Supreme Court judges reviewed Moras’ decision. All of the judges agreed to uphold Moras’ decision to block X.
Judge Flavio Dino explain “Financial power and the size of a bank account do not constitute absurd immunity from justice.” Judge Carmen Lucia explain “The repeated and unwarranted disregard for Brazilian law and national legislation must be met with a judicial response.”
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva statementAnd said, “The Brazilian judiciary may have sent an important message that the world is not obliged to put up with Musk’s far-right melee simply because he is rich.”
