How Brazilians are coping after block on X platform

‘I’ve lost touch with what’s going on, complains former user

- BARBARA ORTUTAY DAVID BILLER

Brazilians have been trying to adapt to life without X, formerly Twitter, after a judge ordered a block on the platform. It started early on Saturday, and the service is now largely inaccessible both on the web and via its mobile app. The action came after Elon Musk refused to name a legal representative to Brazil, missing a deadline imposed by Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes.

It 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, 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, and 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 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.