Lula joins Musk’s rival network after left-wing movement against X – 04/12/2024 – Power

President Lula (PT) joined this Friday (12) Bluesky (“blue sky” in English), a rival social network to Elon Musk’s X.

The platform, which initially prohibited the entry of heads of state, announced the change of position this Friday.

Lula made his first publication on the network in the morning, about an event in Campo Grande (MS) to enable slaughterhouses to export meat to China. The profile has the same description and photo as on X.

The creation of the president’s official profile follows a movement by members of the Brazilian left against X, formerly Twitter.

The businessman has embarked on the wave of Bolsonarists and is in a dispute with Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), whom he has called a dictator. Moraes, in turn, ordered the investigation of Musk, who threatened to release accounts blocked in court due to fake news.

First announced in 2019, Bluesky arrived in Brazil last year. The network, created by Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter, emerged as an internal project within the microblogging platform, but took on a life of its own when Dorsey left the network’s presidency at the end of 2021.

But it was this week that the platform began to receive massive support from authorities, in a move to retaliate against Musk.

Politicians such as the government leader in Congress, Randolfe Rodrigues (no party-AP), and the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, have already created their profiles on the network.

“Providing a service cannot become an imposition of will. Those who operate in Brazil must respect the rules, democracy and the Constitution. Threats do not take away our freedom, nor can they penalize followers for their positions,” he said.

Ministers of Esplanada, Jorge Messias (AGU) and Paulo Pimenta (Secom), also joined Bluesky.

The head of Secom criticized Musk, without mentioning him by name. “We will not allow anyone, regardless of the money and power they have, to affront our homeland. We will not compromise in the face of threats and we will not tolerate with impunity any act that violates our democracy,” he said.

Pimenta also said that Brazil will not be “guarded” by social media platforms.

Messias published a photo of the constitution and reiterated support for the STF and its ministers. “All those who love democracy need to unite to defend it from threats that seek to garrot freedom, in the words of Ulysses Guimãres,” he stated.

Musk’s actions of attacking Moraes and disobeying court orders led authorities to come to the defense of the minister and the STF in recent days. The judge, in turn, stated that “freedom of expression is not freedom of aggression”.

President Lula has already criticized Elon Musk in recent days, but without mentioning him by name. He said that the businessman never produced “a stalk of grass in Brazil” and defended the STF.

“We have a very serious thing in this country and in the world, which is whether we want to live in a democratic regime or not. Whether we are going to allow the world to experience the xenophobia of extremism. Which is what is happening,” he said, in last Wednesday (10).