How Brazil's suspension of X is hurting “Stan Twitter”

The thriving “stan” communities on X that helped shape modern fandom and culture have become a little quieter these days.

The backbone of Stan Twitter was almost completely silenced, an unintended victim of Brazil's decision to ban X for defying court orders to remove accounts and posts that violated political misinformation and hate speech laws. In recent years, “Come to Brazil!” had become a common refrain on the platform as so many Brazilians have embraced it as a place to promote their favorite artists.

“We are not in the global dialogue,” said Aianne Amado, a doctoral student at the University of São Paulo and professor at the Federal University of Sergipe who studies Brazilian fandom, of the platform's absence. “And without us, there are fewer discussions, fewer trends, less information, so I think artists will suffer for sure.”

Alexandre de Moraes, the chief justice of Brazil's Supreme Court, banned X from the country last Friday until the company agrees to comply with the court's orders. The court also ordered that X must appoint a legal representative in the country to handle regulatory warnings, as required by law for social media companies.

X refused to comply with the court's orders, and a Supreme Court panel upheld de Moraes' decision. Brazil has one of X's largest user bases, with over 21 million users, according to Statista.

Elon Musk, who took over X in late 2022, used his platform to criticize de Moraes. A new X-linked account called “Alexandre Files” was created to discredit the chief justice. However, experts told NBC News that Musk and the account had misinterpreted court orders and Brazilian law.

The decision was difficult for Brazilian fan communities, who mostly posted on X. Nevertheless, many users of popular fan accounts felt the ruling was necessary.

“Although I know [X] is a big part of the stan community and part of what I do with Ariana Grande Brasil. I know that Elon has defied the legal system and that action must be taken,” said André Rodrigues, one of 11 people who run a Brazilian Ariana Grande fan account with over 286,000 X followers.

Hours before the ban went into effect, numerous X users expressed how important the Brazilian community was to the Twitter stan. Some said goodbye to their favorite pop culture update accounts and artist fan pages, many of which are based in Brazil. Several Brazilian stan accounts shared their last posts with the tag #MeuUltimoTweet or #MyLastTweet and many have not posted since.

The reaction of the international fan community to Brazil's X-ban underscores the contribution that Brazilian fans have made to the development of online fandom. Over the years, online fan communities have become major cultural forces, playing a crucial role in promoting artists, creating trends, and even engaging young voters.

Brazilian fans have created popular memes, influenced the way fans communicate with each other and introduced new terminology, Amado said.

“Without X here, it will impact Stan accounts worldwide,” she said.

Rodrigues said stan accounts like his often translate announcements, post real-time updates about an artist's projects and organize fan events like listening parties.

“Being a big stan account or an update account feels like it's very invisible work,” Rodrigues said. “I think this ban showed that we have some value and that our work is important.”

While X struggled to retain its users after Musk's acquisition, Stan accounts largely remained on the platform. It was difficult to relocate the existing, robust fan bases that had gathered on the site since Twitter's early days.

Maria Eduarda, who manages the fan account Update Olivia Brasil, dedicated to Olivia Rodrigo, said in an email that X is “the most important and largest platform for stan communities in Brazil.” Eduarda said the platform achieves the highest engagement among fans compared to other social media sites.

“Unfortunately, after the lockdown, engagement dropped drastically,” said Eduarda of the Update Olivia Brasil account. “We weren't actively using other platforms, so it was a bit difficult to recover what we had on X.”

Amado said the ban could affect some artists' promotional strategies, as Brazilian fans, especially those of X, have been successful in getting others excited about an artist's work.

Amado said a good example of these fans' organizational skills was when they welcomed Taylor Swift to Brazil last year during her Latin American tour “Eras.” She said Brazilian Swifties on X were instrumental in getting a projection resembling her iconic “You Belong With Me” shirt projected onto the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

Grande fan Rodrigues agreed that the ban could affect the artists' promotional strategies in Brazil. Ariana Grande Brasil, Update Olivia Brasil and several other Brazilian pop stars' fan accounts have received some support from Universal Music Brazil. Rodrigues said the label has worked with fan accounts to help promote the artists promoting in the country.

Universal Music Group and Universal Music Brazil did not respond to requests for comment.

Some accounts used virtual private networks (VPNs) to access X, while others tried to transfer their accounts to other platforms such as Bluesky. Bluesky reported 2.6 million new users in the days following the ban, over 85% of whom are Brazilian.

Nevertheless, many hope that the ban will be lifted soon, even if it is unclear how long it will last.

“We don't think the ban will be permanent,” said Eduarda. “Of course, the owner of X has to cooperate for this to work.”

CORRECTION (September 10, 2024, 3:52 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a fan account. It read Update Olivia Brasil, not Olivia Rodrigo Brasil.