Science & Technology
X lost millions of users after being banned in Brazil | TechCrunch Minute
X has lost tens of millions of monthly active users in Brazil after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes demanded the removal of seven accounts posting misinformation in support of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Musk did not comply with the takedown requests, resulting in X shutting down its operations in Brazil, then an immediate, country-wide…
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@powerhouse884
September 4, 2024 at 11:46 am
Now we need Europe to do it. 💪🏻, then the rest of the world.
@favouriteworstdaniel
September 4, 2024 at 12:48 pm
the entire situation has made me join bluesky and realise how much of a hellish website twitter is (already knew this but this was sort of the last straw)
@dantereinhardt6911
September 4, 2024 at 12:59 pm
I don’t like Twitter or Elon Musk, but as a Brazilian this move by Moraes worries me and a lot of other people. It was politically motivated and done merely to suppress the opposition and support the current president.
There have been worse platforms spreading misinformation in Brazil, and they are not censored as long as they are supportive of the current government.
@rubncarmona
September 4, 2024 at 1:10 pm
I don’t think the president’s popularity is high anywhere even among those who voted for him since most did so to avoid the other candidate. Regardless, it’s not a foreign’s role to question the laws of a country he’s working in.
@dantereinhardt6911
September 4, 2024 at 1:14 pm
@@rubncarmona It’s his right to not comply, and suffer the consequences. And it’s the duty of the citizens to fight against decisions like this by the government.
@Necr0mante
September 4, 2024 at 3:04 pm
Elon musk is playing political games. Opponents of the current government (right-wing) have been opening their legs to Musk for a long time, as they accept everything the billionaire does. Musk has tried to destabilize Bolivia before, with an interest in that country’s lithium. He fulfilled orders like Brazil’s in other countries like Türkiye and India. Musk is totally political and unbiased, he is not interested in freedom of expression as he often says.
@arthurorir8554
September 4, 2024 at 10:54 pm
@@rubncarmona The current president is among the most famous people in the country’s whole history. The former president, as well as the nazi and fake news accounts on twitter, are a product of the far right movement the country has been suffering from in the last 8 years or so.
Also, in Brazil, twitter has always been a leftist social media, it was only in 2017 that the far right movement started to gain some space in there, mainly by spreading misinformation to help win the election (before that they mostly used telegram to create local, cult like, bubbles of misinformation, very similar to nazi chans and stuff lke that)
@arthurorir8554
September 4, 2024 at 10:59 pm
Yes, the end of twitter was mainly a loss for Bolsonaro’s side, but that’s not because bolsonaro was more popular, it’s because twitter was an easy way to spread misinformation, contrary to the TV or other more traditional media
@randomuser66438
September 4, 2024 at 7:03 pm
Brazil never stays a democracy for long
@3dparadox103
September 5, 2024 at 3:13 am
When democracy means chaos , it becomes a bad democracy
@henriquechehad
September 5, 2024 at 8:24 am
It’s actually the opposite. Brazil’s legal supreme court is supporting and keeping the democracy.
@randomuser66438
September 5, 2024 at 10:07 am
@@henriquechehad Sure thing pal. Just like in Venezuela.
@henriquechehad
September 5, 2024 at 10:21 am
@@randomuser66438 you know this comparison makes no sense 🙂 also it’s a too shallow sentence people always repeat for anything lol.
@randomuser66438
September 5, 2024 at 10:30 am
@@henriquechehad Venezuela has a supreme court that works relentlessly to protect Venezuela’s democracy. What am I missing exactly?
@jonicas
September 4, 2024 at 10:01 pm
We’re done with X. Come to Bluesky 🦋
@Vinioliveira6079
September 5, 2024 at 4:54 pm
BlueSky sucks
@netones
September 4, 2024 at 10:14 pm
Elon cannot play with the sovereignty of Brazil, or indeed of any country. If he wants to be respected, he should respect the constitutions of each country in which he wants to do business. I am Brazilian and Twitter has long since become a toxic environment. We do not need Twitter or X. In fact, it would be very uncreative to change the name to X.
@Vhasemzini
September 5, 2024 at 8:11 am
Seems like he only does what fascist regimes tell him.
@NuclearAnxiety
September 5, 2024 at 9:23 am
Twitter users in Brazil have expressed disapproval of Elon Musk’s attempts to evade legal responsibilities and disregard Brazilian law. Many are eager to switch to other social networks like Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon. Even Tumblr has seen a noticeable increase in users from Brazil.
@eliassuzumura
September 5, 2024 at 10:03 am
Every company that wants to do business in Brazil, must have a legal representation in Brazil. That’s the bare minimum…
Do the X… Of Xandão!!!
@cesar_8336
September 5, 2024 at 3:31 pm
Imagine the Supreme Court deciding your Hair Parlor needs to have a baker for the bare minimum, it’s ridiculous! They are just forcing this to be able to persecute this “representative” if he does not accept the censorship.
@ssorvete89
September 5, 2024 at 3:58 pm
the cheap chauvinistic approach sudaca left has to these themes is just cringe and dated, i guess it’s a normal symptom of a young (mentally undeveloped) country.
@renansm6691
September 5, 2024 at 4:01 pm
@@cesar_8336 the supreme court didn’t create that law. (That’s not how supreme courts work)
That law has existed for years. And has been stablished going throught all the democraric procedures.
Supreme court exists to enforce laws. They didn’t pull anything out of their asses.
All Musk is doing is running away from a fine that’d be pocket money for him.
@Vinioliveira6079
September 5, 2024 at 4:54 pm
So that the representative can be ilegally arrested
@Boseibert
September 5, 2024 at 4:54 pm
@@cesar_8336
Imagine making a comparison that makes sense. X is a multinational company that is currently having problems with Brazilian justice and needs legal representation to be able to resolve the problems with the Brazilian justice, it is not difficult to understand.
Perhaps it would be better to compare it to the hair parlor wanting to participate in a baking competition without having a baker. It’s a better comparison, but it’s still not perfect.
@fandoaow
September 5, 2024 at 2:23 pm
Correction: X wasn’t banned in Brazil, it was suspended. It can resume activities as soon as it complies with court orders.
@Vinioliveira6079
September 5, 2024 at 4:54 pm
Ilegal court orders
@lucasoliveira9834
September 5, 2024 at 8:11 pm
Exactly!
@3sbon
September 5, 2024 at 4:14 pm
Very stable genius
@LiberdadeBatora
September 5, 2024 at 4:39 pm
long live Xandão!
@Folleninluv
September 7, 2024 at 1:38 pm
É como dizem né, satanás liderará por um milênio kkkk
@Thiagoz887
September 7, 2024 at 9:23 pm
@@FolleninluvI think he only needed 4 years from 2019 to 2022 to cause chaos and gather an army of demons.
@Vinioliveira6079
September 5, 2024 at 4:59 pm
Brazil is a dictatorship. Just like during the Military Dictatorship, if you’re part of the opposition, you’re going to be censored and persecuted
@thiago_oliv
September 5, 2024 at 5:53 pm
0:41 The difference is that in those countries the order is probably legal (partial freedom of speech), but in Brazil taking down profiles like the way it was is illegal (in a secret procedure with no access by any parts, forbidden by the procedure law, by a judge that is the victm and prosecutor, that simply overrules and ignores the attorney general).
@tut2tut2
September 5, 2024 at 9:30 pm
Estava faltando um vara-lata para defender o Musk, vai estudar as leis e pare de falar besteiras. O que você está completamente errado, pare com as fake news.
@putzz67767
September 6, 2024 at 12:36 am
Da pra ver que você tem condições de saber nenhum direito fundamental é absoluto no Brasil (até mesmo nos EUA). Então não seja síndico com esse papo processual.
@thedu640
September 6, 2024 at 7:18 am
Sabe que tudo começou quando o X negou em banir contas de pedofil@s , estrupad@res e de pessoas que estavam marcando para entrar em escolar e m@tar pessoas
@luigeribeiro
September 6, 2024 at 8:17 am
“The difference is that in those countries the order is probably legal”
LOL
The free speech absolutist only comply to requests to suspend accounts from dictatorships. That shows how convinient/hypocrite he is and how dumb you are.
@thiago_oliv
September 6, 2024 at 10:00 pm
@@putzz67767 Sim, nenhum direito é absoluto. Mas todo dever é.
@KriegerKrieg
September 5, 2024 at 7:23 pm
We dont have free speech to discuss the weather, we have it to say very controversial things. -Ron Paul
Qepd Brazil
@Rasfa
September 5, 2024 at 8:37 pm
J in Portuguese sounds as in French, not Spanish.
@samt11ts3
September 7, 2024 at 2:26 pm
no,it dosent
@gabrieltimo2753
September 5, 2024 at 9:16 pm
Unfortunately in Brazil there’s no law anymore. Whoever uses the X plataform through VPN will be charged the honest amount of 50K in their currency (about 9k USD today), meanwhile if you kill someone “by accident” your fee starts with a single minimum wage “1400” (about to 250USD). It’s cheaper to kill someone than using a social media in Brazil nowdays.
Those who approve this minister behavior are the same who voted for the today’s president, a man proven guilty of several crimes including corruption… The one who got free of jail thanks to the same minister who blocked X. But of course this is just by chance, there’s no relation, they are just defending the law… 🤡
@marcelom9318
September 6, 2024 at 2:23 am
X was a house of crimes and unmoderated content like nazism, racism, bullying, incitement to suicide crimes, fakenews, misinformation, hate speeach, attacks against the institutions, incitement to riots and a tool to institutionalize a coup détat in the begining of 2022 in Brasilia (only 1 week after the inauguration of the Lula new government). The Supreme Court reactions is more than justifiable. The ban is not related to some “censoring regime”. All other social networks are working normally. They have their representatives in the country attending the Justice demands. The real reasons Mr. Musk, which is a provocateur, is doing such a mess is more related to his other financial interests, like electric cars and lithium mining in Brazil. Musk is NOT interested in “free speach” but big money business.
Brazilian people are super confortable. There are dozen more ways to comunicate. X was only the 9th biggest social network in the country so, not sooo relevant. Everybody that was using X is migrating to Bluesky.
@wirelesscustomer9973
September 6, 2024 at 8:16 am
So Brazil is totally communist. Not surprised.
@wirelesscustomer9973
September 6, 2024 at 8:17 am
Stand firm Elon 😊
@AndrehHimself
September 6, 2024 at 10:51 am
If anyone is interested, just sharing some additional context as a Brazilian🇧🇷: the former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, attempted a coup when he lost the election and claimed election fraud (without ever providing any evidence to support his claim). According to our law, defending things like “we should close the Congress and the Supreme Court,” said by many influencers and far-right congressmen, goes against democracy, and any attempt to undermine our democracy is considered a crime (it’s written in our constitution). There was also a surge in school shootings where Twitter refused to take down content incentivizing such atrocities as it “wasn’t against their policies.” The Supreme Court ordered the takedown of such posts/accounts, but Musk (noting that Twitter always complied before him) refused, saying it was “freedom of speech.” Since his personal view of right and wrong is completely irrelevant to Brazilian law and there wasn’t a legal representative in the country, there was no other choice but to suspend access to the site.
PS: Indeed, not only I but also many lawyers and journalists believe that fining VPN users is absurd (a minimum salary is ~US$3.3k/year vs. a $9k fine), but we still stand by the decision to suspend it.
@luiskrotz
September 6, 2024 at 11:53 am
Is mainly a dispute of inflated egos.
@jessicalima1807
September 6, 2024 at 11:56 am
The ban request was not because the accounts were supporting Jair Bolsonaro, but because they were posting misinformation, which is forbidden in Brazil. Also, X is not banned, it’s suspended, until it pays the fine and ban the account as previously requested.
@thepinktreeclub
September 6, 2024 at 2:57 pm
no he didnt, we still there
@thepinktreeclub
September 6, 2024 at 2:59 pm
we dont speak spanish.
@rosampa1980
September 6, 2024 at 4:39 pm
Congrats, Xandão 👏🏻👏🏻
@jeffrystephan6992
September 6, 2024 at 8:17 pm
Hi from Brazil. I joined BSK
@anatil4
September 6, 2024 at 8:25 pm
Como Brasileiro eu digo Tchau Hospício Digital X. As a Brazilian I say Bye Digital Hospice X.
@juancarlosrodriguezolaya2412
September 6, 2024 at 8:34 pm
Let’s go to BLUESKY 🎉🎉🎉
@thiagoalbuquerque4150
September 6, 2024 at 10:20 pm
Every one can do the same, f.off for ElonMosca…
@eduardocesarmoro
September 6, 2024 at 10:31 pm
bro, if Musk respected our laws, nothing this would happen! Press X to pay respects for Xandão, the ultimate brazillian judge of all time 😎😎😎😎
@aeionmarks1426
September 6, 2024 at 10:45 pm
Sou Brasileiro e boa parte dos comentários de supostos brasileiros que estão aqui comentando em inglês em apoio aos atos ilegais do Ministro Alexandre de Moraes são opiniões de Militância do regime de excessão que existe no Brasil, boa parte dessas pessoas são doutrinadas por um vasto arco de desinformação e conteúdo doutrinário de toda Oligarquia que dá respaldo ao regime antidemocrático que aflinge o Brasil.
@Odisseia-hh2td
September 7, 2024 at 8:50 am
Btw, afaik BlueSky also does not have representation in Brazil, so in theory, they are as good as X.
@Thiagoz887
September 7, 2024 at 9:27 pm
They are new here, and do not have commercial contracts. Furthermore, X’s problem goes far beyond just having a representative,Musk has not been complying with court orders to provide information to help the Brazilian state punish the terrorists of January 8th for some time now (he did this possibly because he belongs to the team).
@brunodalzotto
September 7, 2024 at 9:45 am
Vpn all the way, come and take it, big bald
@Thiagoz887
September 7, 2024 at 9:30 pm
You guys don’t even use Twitter you idiots😂 A few weeks ago you were still saying that this social network should be shut down because it was full of militant leftists (which is true). You didn’t use it when you didn’t need a VPN, so why are you going to use it now?
@Lemure_Noah
September 7, 2024 at 3:25 pm
That’s is false. Brazilian accounts are still actives and people are using it, including press, the Supreme Court itself and companies. All through VPN.
@Sage2000
September 7, 2024 at 4:54 pm
Please study before posting…
@iskabin
September 7, 2024 at 11:48 pm
I’m brazilian, and I can tell that the orders were unlawful, therefore X cannot comply with them per US law that forbids a US based company of committing a crime in a foreign country. The order were unlawful in several aspects, but the most blatant is the fact that brazilian law forbids preemptive censorship, meaning it forbids profile removal, only contents (posts) can be removed through a court order, the law is very clear about that (refer to internet civil act). Also, brazilian congressmen have immunity against any type of censorship (refer to brazilian constitution), and the laws ordered the removal of profiles of brazilian congressmen. There are several other laws broken in this whole mess, but those are the most important in my view and most experts. Moraes’ is acting outside the law, as criminal, and has the support of almost all supreme court ministers, and he and the court has been acting like that since 2016 at Dilma’s (Lula’s successor) impeachment. The brazilian supreme court has a closed inquiry (meaning a hidden prosecution that nobody has access to) that is completely illegal as the court cannot open an inquiry that does not treat crimes that happened inside the court, that it uses to censor and jail political opponents, people have been killed in jail without even knowing why they were there because they or their defense has no access to the process, including a journalist, this inquiry is called ‘inquérito do fim do mundo’ or ‘inquiry of the end of the world’.
@richardm450
September 8, 2024 at 4:15 am
It is nothing to do with freedom of speech. X doesn’t take accountability for disinformation and violence inciting posts. Plus Musk actively suppresses information that is not tuned with his interested.
Hence it’s a lies that this ban is to do with freedom of speech. It’s to hold powerful people like Musk accountable
@ca8rio8ca
September 8, 2024 at 12:15 pm
BRAZIL is now on Bluesky and we’re loving it! Come along people!