Access To X In Brazil Temporarily Restored After Change

Tom Jowitt,
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Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) ‘temporarily’ circumvents block in Brazil after switching to cloud services

Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has ‘temporarily’ circumvented a court-ordered ban in Brazil, after updating how its servers are accessed in the country.

Reuters reported that the update had made X accessible to many users in Brazil on Wednesday, but the platform said it was an “inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users.”

X said it expected the platform to be inaccessible again shortly in Brazil, according to a tweet from X’s Global Affairs team.

Cloudflare access

The X update saw it route access via Cloudflare, which allowed some Brazilian users to reach the platform.

Doing this has reportedly made the nationwide block of X in Brazil difficult to enforce, as officials cannot simply shutdown Cloudflare access in the country, as that could potentially shut down half of the internet services in that country.

However officials can approach Cloudflare itself to suspend X from Brazil.

Reuters noted that Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel is working to notify content delivery network providers and telecom companies to block access again to X in Brazil. However it is not clear how long it will take for providers to comply with the order.

“When X was shut down in Brazil, our infrastructure to provide service to Latin America was no longer accessible to our team,” said X’s Global Affairs team. “To continue providing optimal service to our users, we changed network providers. This change resulted in an inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users.”

“While we expect the platform to be inaccessible again shortly, we continue efforts to work with the Brazilian government to return very soon for the people of Brazil,” it warned.

Meanwhile the Biden-Harris administration issued a rare rebuke to Brazil for X’s ban, saying the move was against free speech.

Elon Musk, who is heavily backing Republican Donald Trump in the upcoming election, tweeted that the White House intervention was “unexpected, but appreciated.”

Musk clash

Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes had begun an investigation into Elon Musk’s X in April 2024 for obstruction of justice, after the billionaire said he would reactivate accounts on X that the judge had ordered blocked.

Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Image credit: Brazil federal government
Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Image credit: Brazil federal government

Musk however refused to back down or appoint a new legal representative of the company in Brazil and settle any outstanding daily fines within 24 hours.

Musk called for Justice Alexandre de Moraes to “resign or be impeached”.

In August X closed down its office in Brazil “effective immediately” due to “censorship orders” by the judge, and laid off its staff in the country.

Then in early September access to X was shut down in Brazil after the firm refused to comply with a court order to appoint a legal representative in the country.

Last week Brazil Justice Alexandre de Moraes had said he would lift freezes previously imposed on the bank accounts belonging to SpaceX subsidiary Starlink and social media platform X following the transfer of 18.35 million reais ($3.3m, £2.5m) from the accounts into the national treasury.