After Elon Musk refused to comply with local laws in Brazil, the social media platform X was blocked by the country's supreme court. As a result, millions of Brazilian X users were unable to access the network as internet providers and mobile phone companies enforced the ban. The Guardian received a message: "Seems like you lost connectivity. We'll keep retrying" when attempting to access the network.
The final straw came on Thursday after Musk ignored a 24-hour deadline to name a new legal representative following the closure of the social media platform's local office in August. Alexandre de Moraes, the supreme court judge who imposed the X "like a no man's land – a veritable land without law" by allowing the "massive propagation" of misinformation, hate speech and anti-democratic attacks.
Many Brazilians migrated to the rival network, Bluesky, which reported a surge of 500,000 new users in the past two days. Notable among Bluesky's new members is Felipe Neto, a top Brazilian social media influencer with over 17 million X followers, who highlighted the importance of following a country's legislation, even if one disagrees with it.
In an update on Wednesday, The Guardian revealed that the Elon Musk-owned satellite-based internet service provider Starlink would abide by the Brazilian supreme court justice’s order to block X despite having earlier suggested it would not comply.
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