Brazil has taken drastic action against X (formerly Twitter) after a legal dispute with Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes led Elon Musk to shut down X’s operations in the country.
The conflict started when Justice de Moraes gave X a deadline to appoint a new legal representative in Brazil. X refused, and after the deadline passed at 7:07 PM ET on Friday, Justice de Moraes ordered the country’s National Telecommunications Agency to block access to X within 24 hours. He also instructed over 20,000 internet service providers to enforce the ban.
Additionally, Moraes imposed a daily fine of R$50,000 ($8,900) on anyone trying to bypass the ban using VPNs.
Reports suggest that Apple and Google were contacted to prevent users from downloading the X app on iOS and Android devices, which could explain the difficulties some Brazilian users faced when trying to download VPNs from the App Store.
Despite these obstacles, many of Brazil’s 16 million X users turned to VPNs to continue accessing the platform. This led to a massive surge in VPN usage, with a 469% increase on the first day of the ban, reaching 1600% by August 31st, according to research from VpnMentor.
As a result of the block, many Brazilian users began exploring alternative social media platforms. Bluesky, a rival to X, gained one million new users on the day of the block and quickly became the top free iPhone app in Brazil, even surpassing Meta’s Threads.
More https://www.vpnmentor.com/news/vpn-surge-brazil/
