Brazil's Supreme Court, led by controversial judge Alexandre de Moraes, has ordered the immediate blocking of the social network X in the country (where an estimated one in ten residents uses it) after the social network refused to respond to government requests to suspend accounts believed to be spreading misinformation.
First, Apple and Google were instructed to remove the app from their stores in Brazil, thus preventing it from being installed on new phones, and thus promoting X competitors like Threads and Bluesky to become the most downloaded apps in the country.
Both Threads and Bluesky are proud of all the new users they’ve welcomed from Brazil, without mentioning the controversial reason behind the switch. Bluesky CEO Jay Graber simply thanked Brazil for “making the right decision.”
But this suspension goes beyond app stores and just blocking domains and IP addresses: it also seeks to prevent users from accessing the platform if they dare try to circumvent the ban on X by resorting to VPN services.
In fact, every user who uses VPNs for this purpose is subject to fines of 50,000 Brazilian reals, or about $8,908 per day. Of course, it is not yet clear how this fine will be enforced and how users who use VPNs to access IQ will be detected, especially considering that one of the functions of VPNs is to hide traffic.
Despite this threat, demand for VPN services has increased by 1,600% in the Ibero-American country, demonstrating a clear resistance to what they see as government censorship and control of information.