‘Threads Just Doesn’t Have The Juice’: NFL Writers on Brazil’s Twitter Ban

Before boarding his flight to Brazil, Eliot Shorr-Parks had to give a heads up to his more than 144,000 followers on the website formerly known as Twitter.

“No Twitter/X in Brazil so follow me on Threads or IG,” Shorr-Parks wrote. 

The Eagles beat reporter for Philadelphia radio station WIP was headed to the country for Friday’s Packers-Eagles game. He’s among dozens of journalists navigating a nationwide ban on Elon Musk’s social media service, which was ordered by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week. The order cited Musk’s refusal to curtail misinformation and failure to appoint a legal representative in the country; it was unanimously upheld by a five-member panel of the Supreme Court on Monday. 

“It’s had an impact,” Shorr-Parks told Front Office Sports. “I’m doing the same work, but it isn’t reaching the same audience. It’s the biggest week of the year and an incredibly unique experience. The biggest part of my job is connecting to fans and with Twitter gone I’ve lost a big portion of being able to do that.” 

Shorr-Parks has a fraction of the followers on Threads, although the Meta-owned social media platform is functioning just fine in Brazil. Bluesky and Mastodon, social media sites that sought to provide an alternative to Musk-era Twitter, could also get a boost as fans and bettors seek news out of Brazil this week. 

As of Saturday, more than one million new users in Brazil signed up for Bluesky over the span of about a week, according to a company spokesperson. 

“The number of new users continues to grow by the minute,” the Bluesky spokesperson told FOS. “The Brazilian influx is also setting new all-time highs for activity on the network.”

\The official NFL Brazil X account’s last post, a video of Eagles coach Nick Sirianni crying, was published at 11 p.m. on Friday before the nationwide ban began Saturday. 

Along with upholding Moraes’ ban, the Brazilian Supreme Court also upheld a 50,000 reais (about $8,900) per day fine for anyone using a VPN or other means to bypass the X ban. The head of Anatel, Brazil’s telecom regulator, told Reuters that the agency is inspecting the country’s telecom operators to ensure X is inaccessible on mobile and land-based data services. 

“All you people telling me to use a VPN didn’t tell me it would cost me $8,900,” Matt Schneidman, the Packers beat reporter for The Athletic, wrote. 

A spokesperson for The Athletic said the X ban “does not have any real impact on” the sports news site and pointed readers to real-time updates on The Athletic’s website. Journalists covering the game for ESPN haven’t been given specific guidelines on X alternatives, a source with knowledge of the situation told FOS. 

NBC Sports, which is televising the Packers-Eagles game, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

“I have been pretty consistently posting on Threads over the last few months and I am happy I did since I go into this week with at least somewhat of a built up base,” Shorr-Parks says. “But no question posting to Threads just doesn’t have the same juice right now as posting to Twitter, especially in a big week like this.”

Since Musk purchased the company formerly known as Twitter in 2022, he has repeatedly laid off staff responsible for moderating content. The company’s head of trust and safety left last summer. In the monthslong saga in Brazil over the spread of disinformation, X initially followed Moraes’ April order to suspend accounts that disseminated false information and hate speech before Musk lifted the bans days later.

Right-wing influencers on X were cited as a major driver for a failed insurrection in January 2023, months after Jair Bolsonaro fell to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the country’s presidential race. 

“The world is not obliged to put up with Musk’s far-right ideology just because he is rich,” Lula told CNN Brasil (per a translation by Fortune) on Monday.