Despite a recent nationwide ban imposed by the Supreme Court, some Brazilian users reconnected with X on Wednesday as a result of the social network apparently changing how its servers are accessed. However, the reunion may be short-lived.
Judge Alexandre de Morais Ordered a nationwide lockdown on August 30 He has had a tense relationship with billionaire Elon Musk for months over orders to delete accounts and limits on free speech in Brazil. He also imposed fines on anyone using a virtual private network (VPN) to access the platform.
This makes X effectively inaccessible in that country Associated Press journalists did not have access until Wednesday. Experts examining X's IP addresses said there were signs the company had begun routing users to its own IP addresses through servers at content delivery network Cloudflare.
“The service that Elon Musk's social network started using acts like a 'digital shield' to protect the company's servers,” said Pedro Diogenes, technical director for Latin America at CLM, a reseller specializing in cybersecurity. It acts as a proxy between users and the X server, filtering traffic and preventing the original Internet Protocol (IP) address from being identified, Ni told the AP.
Brazil's telecoms regulator Anatel said in a statement that it was investigating the situation and would report its findings to the Supreme Court and that there was no change in De Moraes' ruling. A panel of judges later upheld his decision, although it has not yet been heard by the court's full bench, and his fine on VPNs in particular faced backlash, including from the state bar association.
The Supreme Court declined to comment on its potential action when contacted by The Associated Press, and Cloudflare did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk, who often uses his platform to disparage DeMorais, had not commented on X by late afternoon.
Former President Jair Bolsonaro celebrates the return of social networks. He sides with Musk in dispute with DeMorais and sought to portray the ban as censorship by an overzealous judge.
“I congratulate you all for the pressure you put on to defend Brazilian democracy,” Bolsonaro posted on X on Wednesday.
The return of the platform was heavily promoted by some Brazilian X users, some of whom took to de Moraes directly to swear they weren't using a VPN. There have been no reports of fines being levied on people using VPNs.
Cloudflare is a security company that prides itself on delivering services to websites, regardless of their content, and has a history of protecting sites that other companies wouldn't touch. But only to a certain point. In 2017, for example, the company dropped the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer as a customer after deadly clashes at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. In 2022, it abandoned the notorious stalking and harassment website Kiwi Farms, citing “a direct threat to human life.”
But X is a mainstream social media platform — even if it may contain some extremist content — and it’s unclear whether Brazil’s ban will be enough for San Francisco, Calif.-based Cloudflare to abandon it.
However, David Nemer, an expert on the anthropology of technology at the University of Virginia, told The Associated Press that Cloudflare has a reputation for working with governments and therefore may comply with the Supreme Court order and stop acting as X's agent.
Nemer previously wrote on another social media platform, Bluesky, that it would be impossible to order ISPs to block Cloudflare because thousands of Brazilian companies rely on it.
Rafael Mafei, a law professor at the University of São Paulo, said De Morais may also try to force Musk to surrender by going after satellite internet service provider Starlink, as he has done since the ban was enacted.
Last Friday, De Morais seizes approximately $3 million from bank accounts Belongs to X and Starlink to collect penalties owed by X.
Legal analysts have questioned de Moraes' previous decision to freeze Starlink's bank account until it pays X fine. Although Musk owns both X and SpaceX (which operates Starlink), the two companies are separate entities. But Maffei said de Moraes had made it clear he believed the two companies were part of the same economic group.
“Under normal circumstances, anyone who publicly takes active steps to obstruct judicial measures and investigations, as Musk has done, would probably have been arrested in Brazil,” Maffei said.