Brazil’s Supreme Court bans X due to Elon Musk’s non-compliance with local laws, sparking a backlash from the tech billionaire and a surge in new Bluesky users.
On Sunday, one of the world’s most popular social networking platforms, X, went offline in Brazil after Elon Musk’s unwillingness to comply with local laws.
The suspension of X, formerly known as Twitter, was suspended by the Brazilian Supreme Court on Friday, following Musk’s failure to provide a new attorney for an ongoing legal dispute.
As internet providers and mobile phone firms began to enforce the ban, millions of Brazilian X users found themselves unable to access the network on Saturday morning.
According to the Guardian, when the agency tried to access the network on its computer and mobile phone, it received a message reading: “Seems like you lost connectivity. We’ll keep retrying.”
As a result of this, a large number of Brazilians sought refuge on the alternative network Bluesky, which recorded 500,000 new subscribers in the last two days. “Welcome to Bluesky!” the corporation greeted its new members in Portuguese.
Felipe Neto, a prominent social media influencer in Brazil with over 17 million X followers, was among the new members of Bluesky. “Don’t forget, when you go to another country, you’re obliged to follow its legislation, even if you disagree with it,” Neto wrote.
Iis important to note that X has more than 22 million users in Brazil. Its ban is the climax of a politically charged, months-long arm wrestle between the country’s apex court and the rightwing tech billionaire.
What happened?
Following the January 2023 uprising in the capital city of Brasília, which was carried out by supporters of the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, Alexandre de Moraes, the powerful supreme court judge in charge of the ban, had been leading an effort to compel X to eliminate anti-democratic, far-right voices.
Musk, who has aligned himself with rightwing figures including Bolsonaro and his US ally Donald Trump, fired back, accusing Moraes of stifling free speech and attempting to censor conservative views.
The tech CEO’s public tirades against Moraes—characterized by crude and juvenile comments—were similar to his online criticisms of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer during the recent far-right riots. As the owner of X, Musk was accused of fueling the unrest in the UK.
The last straw prior to X’s blockage in Brazil occurred on Thursday when Musk disregarded a 24-hour notice period to name a new legal representative after the social media platform closed its local office in mid-August.
Moraes accused X of treating the social network “like a no man’s land – a veritable land without law” in Friday’s verdict that ordered the ban because it permitted the “massive propagation” of hate speech, misinformation, and attacks against democracy.
Hours later, just around midnight local time, Brazilian users began noticing that X had expired.
Following the judgement, Musk ramped up attacks on Moraes, referring to him as “Voldemort”. “He is a dictator and a fraud, not a justice,” although Brazilian users could no longer read his words without using a virtual private network (VPN).
Progressive Brazilians scoffed at Musk’s claim to be defending free speech, with many celebrating the supreme court’s decision to show X’s owner that he was not above the law.
“If billionaires want to have companies that make billions in these parts, they need to learn to respect the laws. Long live the rule of law and national sovereignty,” the leftwing congresswoman Erika Hilton wrote on X late on Friday night.
