Musk’s X skirts Brazil ban and returns to some users with change to server access

Brazilian users defy Supreme Court ban on X, using Cloudflare to access the social network despite potential consequences.

Some Brazilian users reconnected with X on Wednesday (September 18, 2024) despite the Supreme Court's recent nationwide ban, the result of the social network apparently changing the way its servers are accessed. The reunion may be short-lived, however.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X blocked nationwide on Aug. 30 after months of tension with billionaire Elon Musk surrounding orders to take down accounts and the limits of free speech in Brazil. He also established fines on anyone using virtual private networks (VPN) to access the platform.

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That rendered X effectively inaccessible in the country until Wednesday, with AP journalists among those who had access. Experts examining X's IP addresses said there are indications that the company has begun routing users through the servers of Cloudflare, a content delivery network, en route to its own.

“The service that Elon Musk’s social network has started using works like a ‘digital shield’ that protects the company’s servers,” Pedro Diogenes, Latin America’s technical director for CLM, a distributor that focuses on cybersecurity. It acts as a proxy between users and X's servers, filtering traffic and preventing the original Internet Protocol (IP) address from being recognized, Diogenes told The Associated Press.

Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel said in a statement that it is looking into the situation and will report its findings to the Supreme Court, and that there has been no change to de Moraes' ruling. A panel of fellow justices later upheld his decision, though it hasn’t yet gone before the court’s full bench and his VPN fine in particular has faced blowback, including from the nation’s bar association.

The Supreme Court declined to comment on possible actions it could take when contacted by the AP, and Cloudflare didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk, who often uses his platform to disparage de Moraes, hadn't commented on X by late afternoon.