- X was banned in Brazil amid a feud between owner Elon Musk and Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes.
- De Moraes threatened Brazilians with huge fines if they used VPNs to access the social media site.
Brazilians are fighting back against the country's ban on the social media platform X, sending demand for VPNs skyrocketing despite threats that users could be fined nearly $9,000 a day for finding workarounds to access Elon Musk's site.
X was banned in Brazil on Friday, escalating a monthslong public feud between Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes over content moderation concerns and free speech. Musk has so far refused to comply with de Moraes' orders to remove content related to far-right groups, calling the judge's demands censorship.
De Moraes, in his decree ordering the social media site to cease operations in the country, said X would remain banned in Brazil until the company complies with his order to appoint a legal representative in the country to respond to government requests to suspend accounts on the platform. He also threatened Brazilians with daily fines of 50,000 reais ($8,900) if individuals or companies used VPNs to skirt the ban — more than the average Brazilian makes in a year, according to The New York Times.
Even despite the hefty potential fines, VPN demand has surged in the country by as much as 1,600%, according to an analysis by the site VPNMentor, which helps people find and use VPNs to protect their privacy online.
Alternatives to X, like Bluesky and Threads, have also seen a spike in new users. Bluesky has seen more than 500,000 new users in the last several days, and the company reported "new all-time-highs for activity" on the platform. Likewise, Threads has seen an influx of new users. The X alternatives were the first and second most downloaded iPhone apps in the country over the weekend.
While the site is not as popular in the country as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, average Brazilians have said that, without X, they feel disconnected from the rest of the world, The Associated Press reported. Others are concerned the ban is oppressive and hypocritical, given de Moraes' goal of combating authoritarian extremism in the country.
"I've used VPNs a lot in authoritarian countries like China to continue accessing news sites and social networks," Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said in a post on X before the blockade went into effect, according to an AP translation. "It never occurred to me that this type of tool would be banned in Brazil. It's dystopian."
Representatives for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.