RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) 鈥 Some Brazilian users regained access to X on Wednesday despite a nationwide ban put in place by the country's Supreme Court, a reunion apparently resulting from the social network changing the way its servers are accessed.
But the renewed access may be short-lived.
Late last month, Justice Alexandre de Moraes after months of tension with the site's billionaire owner Elon Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. De Moraes also set fines for anyone using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access the platform.
until Wednesday, when an Associated Press journalist was among those who regained access. The number of X posts made in Brazil rose from 939,000 Tuesday to more than 2 million by late afternoon Wednesday, data analysis company Bites said.
Experts examining X's IP addresses 鈥 numeric designations that identifies sites' location on the internet 鈥 said there are indications the company has begun routing users through the servers of Cloudflare, a content delivery network, en route to its own.
鈥淭he service that Elon Musk鈥檚 social network has started using works like a 鈥榙igital shield鈥 that protects the company鈥檚 servers,鈥 Pedro Diogenes, Latin America鈥檚 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 IP address from being recognized, Diogenes told the AP.
Brazil鈥檚 telecommunications regulator Anatel said it is looking into the situation and will report its findings to the Supreme Court, noting that there has been no change to de Moraes' ruling. A later upheld his decision, though it hasn鈥檛 yet gone before the court鈥檚 full bench. His fine for VPN users in particular has faced blowback, including from the nation鈥檚 bar association.
The Supreme Court declined to comment on possible actions it could take. Musk, who often uses his platform to disparage de Moraes, hadn't commented on X by late afternoon.
Former President Jair Bolsonaro celebrated the return of the social network. and sought to portray the ban as censorship from an overzealous judge.
鈥淚 congratulate you all for the pressure that makes the wheels turn in defense of democracy in Brazil,鈥 Bolsonaro posted Wednesday on X.
Some Brazilian X users trumpeted the platform's return 鈥 with several addressing de Moraes directly, vowing that they weren't using a VPN. There have been no reports of fines being levied against people using VPNs.
Cloudflare, a security company that prides itself on providing services to websites regardless of their content, has a history of protecting sites other companies won鈥檛 touch. But only to a point. In 2017, for instance, as a customer following a deadly clash at a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. And in 2022, it dropped the notorious stalking and harassment citing an 鈥渋mmediate threat to human life.鈥
But X is a mainstream social media platform 鈥 even if it may be home to some extremist content 鈥 and it is not yet clear whether Brazil鈥檚 ban would be enough for San Francisco-based Cloudflare to abandon it.
Cloudflare has a reputation for cooperating with governments, however, and so may comply with an order from the Supreme Court to cease serving as X's proxy, David Nemer, who specializes in the anthropology of technology at the University of Virginia, told the AP.
Ordering internet service providers to block Cloudflare would be impossible, since thousands of Brazilian companies depend on it, Nemer previously wrote on Bluesky, another social media platform.
A person close to Cloudflare, who was not authorized to speak publicly about a business relationship, said the network services provider did not do anything specifically to help X get around Brazil鈥檚 ban. Rather, X recently switched to Cloudflare from another provider, which could be a reason the block is not working. This person added that the workaround likely won't last long.
De Moraes could also attempt to force Musk鈥檚 hand by going after his satellite-based internet service provider Starlink, as he has done since the ban, said Rafael Mafei, a law professor at the University of Sao Paulo.
On Friday, belonging to X and Starlink to collect what X owed in fines.
Legal analysts have questioned de Moraes鈥 prior decision to freeze Starlink鈥檚 bank account until it paid for X's fines. While Musk owns both X and SpaceX, which operates Starlink, the two companies are separate entities. But de Moraes has shown that he considers the two companies to belong to the same economic group, Mafei said.
鈥淯nder normal circumstances, anyone else who openly took active steps to obstruct judicial measures and investigations, as Musk is doing, would possibly have already had their arrest decreed in Brazil,鈥 Mafei said.
___
Ortutay reported from San Francisco.
