X returns to some users in Brazil with server change

Some Brazilian users regained access to the social media platform X on Wednesday despite a nationwide ban put in place by the country’s Supreme Court.

Experts examining X’s IP addresses — numeric designations that identifies sites’ location on the internet — said there are indications the company has begun routing users through the servers of Cloudflare, a content delivery network, en route to its own.

The software acts as a proxy between users and X’s servers, filtering traffic and preventing the original IP address from being recognized, according to Pedro Diogenes, Latin America’s technical director for cybersecurity distributor CLM.

“The service that Elon Musk’s social network has started using works like a ‘digital shield’ that protects the company’s servers,” Diogenes said.

Brazil’s Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X blocked nationwide last month because X owner Elon Musk refused to meet the country’s requirements on free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. De Moraes also set fines for anyone using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access the platform.

That rendered X effectively inaccessible in the country until Wednesday, when the number of X posts in Brazil rose from 939,000 to more than 2 million by late afternoon Wednesday, according to data analysis company Bites.

A possible short-lived return

X said on its platform that it swapped network providers because the shutdown in Brazil was affecting Latin America as a whole.

“This change resulted in an inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users,” the Wednesday evening statement said. “We expect the platform to be inaccessible again shortly”.

Some Brazilian X users trumpeted the platform’s return — with several addressing de Moraes directly, vowing that they weren’t using a VPN.

Among those happy for the app’s return was former President Jair Bolsonaro, who sided with Musk in the feud with De Moraes, calling it censorship.

“When justice acts selectively, we are all at risk. When prior censorship is normalised, we lose our freedom. When freedom of expression and the press are threatened, democracy cries out for help,” Bolsonaro wrote.

Hard to block Cloudflare, expert says

Anatel, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, said there have been no changes to De Moraes’ ruling and so will be preparing a report for the Supreme Court on the situation.

The Supreme Court declined to comment on possible actions it could take.

There have been no reports of fines being levied against people using VPNs.

Cloudflare has a reputation for cooperating with governments and may comply with an order from the Supreme Court to cease serving as X’s proxy, David Nemer, who specialises in the anthropology of technology at the University of Virginia, told the AP.

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Ordering internet service providers to block Cloudflare would be impossible, since thousands of Brazilian companies depend on it, according to Nemer.