X has been banned in Brazil due to a legal dispute between X’s CEO, Elon Musk, and the Brazilian Supreme Court. 

Millions of Brazilian X users were disconnected after Musk refused to comply with local laws that mandated the removal of anti-democratic and hate speech content. 

Why X was banned in Brazil

X was banned after Musk failed to meet a 24-hour deadline to appoint a new legal representative following the closure of X's local office in August. This ban is part of a larger conflict involving Musk's defiance of Judge Alexandre de Moraes of the Brazilian judiciary.

Judge de Moraes has been leading efforts to curb the spread of anti-democratic content following the January 2023 riots in Brasília. Moraes accused X of mismanaging the social network by permitting misinformation, hate speech, and anti-democratic narratives.

Musk’s refusal to comply with these regulations (on the grounds of defending free speech) led to public clashes between him and the Brazilian judiciary. 

Musk’s resistance coupled with his public criticism of Moraes, led to Moraes' ruling to block the platform which has over 22 million users in the country. 

In response, Musk tweeted “We will begin publishing the long list of @Alexandre ’s crimes, along with the specific Brazilian laws that he broke tomorrow. Obviously, he does not need to abide by US law, but he does need to abide by his own country’s laws. He is a dictator and a fraud, not a justice.” 

Judge Moraes had also set a daily fine of $8.9K on users using VPNs to access X and ordered Apple and Google to remove VPN apps from their stores in Brazil. However, a court has now suspended this order to avoid affecting other companies.

Bluesky’s growth amid X ban

Following X's ban, Brazilians have turned to an alternative social platform, Bluesky. The platform has seen a massive surge in new users. On Friday, Bluesky announced it has gained 500,000 new users in just two days with top influencers like Felipe Neto, who has over 17 million followers on X, moving to the platform. 

Bluesky, initially launched by Twitter in 2019 to create a decentralized social protocol, is now an independent public benefit corporation. The site is currently the most popular free app on the iPhone App Store in Brazil, surpassing Meta’s Threads. 

In a post, Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, acknowledged this achievement by praising Brazil for choosing Bluesky.

In May, the company announced it had gained 6 million users. However, it still falls short compared to Musk’s X, which boasts 600 million users while Threads recently reached 200 million active users.