The Brazilian court’s decision to block X (formerly known as Twitter) appears to be in the interest of its competitors, especially Bluesky.
The microblogging platform announced late Friday that it “Seeing ‘unprecedented heights of activity'” with 500,000 new users join In the previous two days. Also, Number one on the list of free iPhone apps In Brazil today, it ranks second after Threads from Meta.
Noting the classifications, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber wrote,“Good job Brazil, you made the right choice.”
This growth is particularly impressive for a platform that only fully opened to the public in February and has indirectly acknowledged its small size (especially compared to competitors X and Threads) by describing itself as “The short king of social media apps.” The company He says It has over 6 million users as of May 2024.
Bluesky was first announced in 2019 as a Twitter-backed initiative to build an open, decentralized social protocol. It has since become an independent public benefit company, with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey stepping down from the board earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s X company has been involved. In an escalating legal battle With Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes over the company’s refusal to block certain accounts as part of a broader crackdown on what Moraes said was election disinformation.
X said earlier this month it would shut down its operations in Brazil, and Moraes then warned the company it would be banned if it did not appoint a legal representative in the country. He made good on his threat on Friday, and also threatened to fine users who try to circumvent the ban with a VPN.
As the ban approaches, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appeared to bid farewell to his followers by Link to his other social media accounts – Starting with Bluesky.