Brazilians reveal what life is like without X after Elon Musk’s platform banned

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Brazil’s shutdown of Elon Musk’s X/Twitter started early on Saturday, making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through mobile apps. The block came 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 months-long feud between Mr Musk and Mr de Moraes over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Brazil has been one of the biggest markets for X/Twitter, 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 user Chico Barney wrote on Threads, a text-based app developed by Instagram which he 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 that was launched last year as an alternative to X/Twitter and other more established sites, has seen a large influx of Brazilians in the past couple of days. The company said on Friday it had seen about 200,000 new users from Brazil sign up during that time, and the number “continues to grow by the minute”. Brazilian users are also setting records for activities such as follows and likes, a Bluesky representative said.

Previous users of other platforms welcomed Brazilians to their ranks. “Hello literally everyone in Brazil,” a user wrote on Threads. “We're a lot nicer than Twitter here,” said another.

Platform migration isn't uncommon for Brazilians, who were huge adopters of Orkut. When Orkut closed, they simply moved to other platforms.

X/Twitter is not as popular in Brazil as 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.

It's also where they share their sense of humour. Many of the country’s most famous memes originate from posts on X/Twitter before spreading to other social networks. Last week, for instance, Brazilians collaboratively crafted an absurd storyline for a fictional telenovela, complete with a theme song created using artificial intelligence tools.

Pop stars and their fanbases were also hit by Brazilians being excluded from the platform.

“Wait a lot of my fan pages are Brazilian!!! Come back hold up!!,” Cardi B said Friday on X/Twitter. A fan page dedicated to Timothée Chalamet, known by the handle TimotheeUpdates, said it would temporarily cease updating as all of its administrators are Brazilian.

Mr De Moraes said X/Twitter will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and he also set a daily fine of R$50,000 (£6,800) 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 on Friday that it would request the Supreme Court review the fines imposed on all citizens using VPNs or other means to access X/Twitter without due process. The bar argued that sanctions should never be imposed summarily before ensuring an adversarial process and the right to a full defence.

“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 type of tool would be banned in Brazil. It’s dystopian.”

A search on Friday on X/Twitter showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially 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/Twitter went off. Mr Musk replied with an emoji suggesting agreement: “100”.

Mr Ferreira is a 28-year-old YouTuber who received the most votes of the 513 elected federal lawmakers in the 2022 election. Mr De Moraes ordered the block of his social media accounts after a mob of Mr Bolsonaro’s supporters attacked Brazil’s Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court in January 2023 seeking to overturn the election.

Lawmaker Bia Kicis said: “The consequences of Alexandre de Moraes’ attacks to Elon Musk, X/Twitter and Starlink [Mr Musk’s satellite internet service] will be regrettable for Brazilians.” She also urged Rodrigo Pacheco, the president of the country’s Senate, to act. Ms Kicis has repeatedly urged Mr 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 blocked by Mr de Moraes in 2022, also said.

The former president said on Saturday on Instagram that X/Twitter’s departure from Brazil was “another blow to our freedom and legal security”.

Mr Bolsonaro said: “It not only affects our freedom of expression, but also undermines the confidence of international companies in operating on Brazilian soil, with impacts ranging from national security to the quality of the information that reaches our citizens.”

On Friday, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva backed Mr de Moraes’ decision and took aim at Mr Musk for positioning himself as though he was above the law.

“Any citizen, from anywhere in the world, who has investments in Brazil, is subject to the Brazilian constitution and Brazilian laws. Therefore, if the Supreme Court has made a decision for citizens to comply with certain things, they either have to comply or take another course of action,” the president said. “It’s not because the guy has a lot of money that he can disrespect it.”

Ana Júlia Alves de Oliveira, an 18-year-old student, said that many young people like her no longer watch newscasts or read newspapers, relying solely on social media platforms such as X/Twitter for their news. Without it, she felt disconnected.

“I kind of lost touch with what’s going on around the world,” she said. “I saw a lot of entertainment there too, so this is a new reality for me.”