Brazil's X ban is sending lots of people to Bluesky

Disclaimer: indifferent at best to musk, probably more dislike than anything else, but not with vitriol.

So I read that this is all because musk refused to appoint a Brazilian citizen as an X representative, as dictated by Brazilian law. I have not verified this part.

Musk refused because the last person to fill that role had all their bank accounts frozen by the judge.

The judge also cut off payments from Brazilian citizens to starlink, something about relating star link to x. so musk said “well then starlink is free for Brazilian citizens because I don’t want to cut people off from their internet connection.” Or something like that.

Edit: blackeyedblitzar child comment of this has better information.

Not exactly. X had a local representative who was threatened by this judge issuing illegal censorship orders. It’s not that they refused to appoint a representative but that they had to get rid of all their employees and legal representation in Brazil because the judge was going after them as individuals, making it impossible for X to challenge what they viewed as unconstitutional orders to censor speech.

The root of the issue is that Alexandre de Moraes, a single justice on the Supreme Court, has been issuing secret orders to censor content, ban accounts, and jail people over political speech. This is unconstitutional in Brazil per article 5 of the 1988 constitution, so X refused the orders. Note that the text of the Brazilian constitution explicitly says that the freedom of expression is guaranteed without censorship (it mentions “censorship”). If they were legal orders they would have complied, as they have in other countries.

Also the “Musk refused” part isn’t accurate. Ultimately these decisions are made by Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X.

I think it's worth noting that "this legal order is unconstitutional therefore I won't abide by it" is still illegal to do in any constitutional democracy that I know of, even if you're ultimately right, including in the USA. You can abide by the order and then seek reparations, but you can't claim something is unconstitutional like that.