So now that X is banned in Brazil, what apps are Brazilians turning to instead, and will X be able to regain its position as a key social platform in the region if it is eventually re-instated by Brazilian authorities?
To recap, at the beginning of this month, Brazilian officials announced a full ban of X due to the platform’s failure to address the spread of harmful misinformation in the app.
Brazilian officials had ordered X to suppress a group of accounts that have continued to undermine the Brazilian Government, by questioning the legitimacy of the result of the 2022 election. X refused, and has since shut down its Brazilian local office, for fear that any X staff will face arrest for defying the order. The lack of a local representative violates Brazil’s operating rules, and hence, the X ban was enacted in response to X’s action.
X reportedly had around 22 million daily active users in Brazil, or around 10% of the local population, though as with most regions, X’s influence is generally greater than its usage figures in themselves.
So where are those 22 million people now engaging instead?
Well according to Bluesky, the Twitter alternative platform, created by former Twitter staffers, it’s added 3 million more users over the past week, the equivalent of 50% growth in its user base since the X ban was announced.
The majority of that expansion has come in Brazil, where it briefly topped the iPhone “Free” app charts, before being unseated by X’s other main competitor in the region, in Meta’s Threads.
As you can see in this chart from Sensor Tower, Threads’ download ranking has also jumped in the region in the wake of the ban, with Elon Musk effectively handing Meta an open door to scoop up more users via the ban.
Musk, however, continues to perpetuate the idea that X actually remains super popular in Brazil, based on the “News” app rankings.
Which is misleading, in that X is not a news app, and never has been, and is only listed as a news app on iOS because former Twitter management were sick of being negatively compared to the growth of Facebook and Instagram, in terms of active users.
For comparison, the top actual news app in the above listing, Brazil’s “O Trabalhador”, has fewer than a million total active installs, so it’s not exactly a competitor on this count.
But Elon and Co. are keen to re-angle the company’s defiance of the Brazilian order as a battle for free speech. Which, in some ways, it is, in terms of allowing alternative political perspectives to be heard. But at the same time, the unrest sparked by ongoing questions about the legitimacy of the nation’s electoral process have caused significant harm already, and will lead to ongoing tensions in the region as they head towards future polls.
As such, it makes sense that Brazilian authorities would be keen to quell this to avoid further impacts, which is especially true when you also consider that all investigations have failed to show any evidence of illegal voter tampering, as suggested by those who believe that former President Jair Bolsonaro was unfairly voted out in the 2022 poll.
So, will X be coming back to Brazil anytime soon?
It seems unlikely, with Elon Musk continuing to criticize Brazil’s ruling bodies, though his other company, Starlink, has made some concessions in order to remain in operation in the region.
Which is actually at the core of the deeper-seated opposition to Brazil’s ruling from Musk’s perspective.
Musk had arranged to strengthen his business dealings with Brazil when Bolsonaro was in charge, which included an expansion of Brazil’s lithium mining operations, and more favorable prices of the resource for Tesla, which needs lithium for its cars.
That deal saw Musk agree to expand Starlink’s program in the region as part of that broader arrangement. But when Bolsonaro lost the vote, Elon also lost out big time on that initial investment.
Which is why he’s really incensed at the Brazilian government, and now, he looks set to cost X more money as a result of his own grievance.
As such, I wouldn’t be betting on Musk making a deal with Brazil’s ruling authorities any time soon, which means that X will stay out of action in the nation for the time being.
