NFL reporters in São Paulo, Brazil, covering the NFL’s first game in South America on Friday, have to go to extreme lengths to cover the game after the country’s Twitter ban, according to one sports journalist.
“The wives of the Philadelphia beat reporters tweeting for them back in Philly/NJ because their husbands aren’t allowed to tweet in Brazil may be my favorite sidebar story of the week,” Dianna Russini, a senior NFL reporter for The Athletic, tweeted Friday. “I hope they let it rip tonight.”
The wives of the Philadelphia beat reporters tweeting for them back in Philly/NJ because their husbands aren’t allowed to tweet in Brazil may be my favorite sidebar story of the week. I hope they let it rip tonight. #Eagles #Packers
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) September 6, 2024
Reporters and NFL personnel are in São Paulo to cover the NFL’s first ever game south of the equator, a tilt between the Green Bay Packers and the Philadelphia Eagles.
The reporters, however, will be unable to share coverage of the game on Twitter due to the country recently banning the platform. (RELATED: Brazilian Judge Who Banned Twitter Sought To Censor Average Joes Simply For Being Conservative, Docs Say)
Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, issued the ban Aug. 30 after a public feud with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk.
Musk refused an order from de Moraes to censor his political opponents, sparking backlash that prompted the judge to threaten jailing Twitter’s legal representative in Brazil, the company claimed online. The representative quit and Musk ceased operations within the country, according to tweets from the platform’s Global Affairs account.
de Moraes issued the ban citing Twitter’s lack of a legal representative. The judge set a $9,000 per day fine for anyone caught using a virtual private network (VPN) to evade the ban and use Twitter, according to PBS.
Musk has called the judge a “dictator” online.
Alexandre de Moraes is an evil dictator cosplaying as a judge. https://t.co/ZIV8KbDCmk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2024