With Musk’s X banned in Brazil, its users carve out new digital homes

RIO DE JANEIRO — As billionaire Elon Musk’s clash with a Brazilian Supreme Court justice came to a head last week, there were legal twists, insults, ultimatums, defiance and then, finally, capitulation. When the digital dust settled, X had become an ex.

Musk’s social media platform was banned nationwide and Justice Alexandre de Moraes set a whopping $9,000 daily fine for anyone using a virtual private network to skirt the suspension. Brazil’s X users, left casting about for a new platform, mostly started washing up on Threads and Bluesky.