Source: AFP
Millions of Brazilians, including the president, have flocked to social media platforms such as Threads or Bluesky, where Portuguese has become the most spoken language in the days since Elon Musk’s X closed in the country.
“Is anyone there?” asked several Brazilian netizens as they made their first test forays into Bluesky, which it said had added more than two million new users since South America’s largest country banned X.
Access to the social network formerly known as Twitter was blocked on Saturday amid a standoff between Musk and Brazil’s Supreme Court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, who has made it his mission to fight misinformation.
The powerful and controversial judge took the measure after Musk, a self-proclaimed “absolute of free speech,” ignored a series of court rulings.
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Bluesky, a social media network created by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, now has 7.6 million users since X was suspended in Brazil.
Meanwhile, searches in Brazil for the term “Yarn” have quadrupled since the ban.
The social network launched a little over a year ago by Meta — which also owns Facebook and Instagram — has 190 million users worldwide.
The threads did not respond to AFP requests for comment to new users since X went live.
However, both apps have been among the most downloaded in Brazil in recent days, according to the Google Play Store.
‘More welcoming’
“I feel like I’ve entered a more welcoming and less aggressive community, even if I miss the honesty that was on X,” said Leon Leal, a student who has switched to Threads after a decade on the former Twitter.
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Brazil has 140 million Instagram users, making the transition to Threads easier as it requires the same login details.
University professor Raul Nunes, who created a Twitter account in 2007, preferred to turn to Bluesky.
“Bluesky has the advantage of having the same language and reporting as Twitter. However, it’s a shame that it doesn’t have a ‘Trending Topics’ section and that you can’t post videos,” he said.
Given the uncertainty over X’s fate, it’s unclear whether the migration will have a lasting effect on the social media landscape in Brazil, a highly connected country with more smartphones than residents.
Raquel Recuero, a social network expert at the Federal University of Pelotas (Ufpel) in southern Brazil, said latent X users “will probably spread to different platforms.”
Hard to find profiles
Victor Chagas, a professor of cultural and multimedia studies at the Federal University of Fluminense (UFF), said Brazilians were moving quickly to other platforms to stay connected to public discourse in their country as well as trends elsewhere.
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But the fact that these other platforms have a much smaller user base worldwide “may represent a certain isolation for Brazil.”
Leal, for example, said he had trouble finding Bluesky profiles for personalities he followed on X.
Chagas said Threads may have more users because of its connection to Instagram, but it “causes more distrust because it belongs to the Meta group” amid widespread concerns about data protection and online privacy.
Brazil’s political figures are also looking for a new home online to stay connected to their base in a highly polarized country prone to heated online debate.
Left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has begun posting regularly on Threads and Bluesky.
Source: AFP
But there are still some die-hards, like far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, a staunch fan of Elon Musk, who still doesn’t have a Bluesky account and uses Threads to promote his account on the Telegram messaging service.
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Moraes threatened a fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) to anyone who used “technological subversions” to bypass the block, such as a VPN — but some continue to do so.
One of Bolsonaro’s loyalists, fiery lawmaker Nicolas Ferreira, 28, told X on Monday: “I didn’t create an account on Bluesky. X is my country.”
Source: AFP
