Elon Musk’s X social network applied automatic updates to its phone applications overnight, helping it bypass a ban in Brazil, an association of internet providers said on Wednesday.
Some Brazilian users were surprised to find they had regained access to the platform (formerly Twitter) from their phones, after a Supreme Court judge ordered it shut down last month following a legal standoff with Musk.
The Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers (Abrint) said the return of X was due to an update to the app’s Cloudflare software, which uses constantly changing IP addresses.
The previous system used unique IPs, which acted as home addresses for servers or computers and could easily be blocked.
Abrint said these changes “make app blocking more complicated.”
The group said many dynamic IPs “are shared with other legitimate services, such as banks and large Internet platforms, making it impossible to block an IP without impacting other services.”
Internet providers are “in a delicate situation” and are waiting for technical analysis and instructions from Brazil’s telecommunications agency, Abrint said.
The shutdown of X in Brazil angered Musk and sparked a fierce debate inside and outside the country about freedom of expression and the limits of social networks.
This social media platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes last month ordered the ban on X after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts and failed to name a new legal representative in the country, according to the order.
Moraes has made it his mission to stamp out misinformation, which has since brought him into multiple confrontations with the South African-born billionaire.
Last week he ordered the transfer of about $3 million from Musk’s companies to pay the fine imposed by X.
Moraes also froze the assets of Xe and Starlink, which has been operating in Brazil since 2022 – particularly in remote communities in the Amazon – to ensure the payment of fines imposed on Xe for failing to comply with court orders.
Musk expressed his displeasure at the suspension, calling Moraes a “dictator”.
Moraes also ordered that those who use “technical subterfuges” such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to access blocked sites could be fined up to $9,000.
“Judge Alexandre de Moraes: I did not use a VPN to get here, I just opened the app for my daily moderation ritual and saw that it works,” wrote a user on XWednesday.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
