Elon Musk’s X social network made an overnight automatic update to phone apps that allowed it to bypass a ban in Brazil, an association of internet providers said on Wednesday.
Some Brazilian users were surprised to be able to access the platform, formerly Twitter, again from their phones after a Supreme Court judge ordered it shut down in a legal battle with Musk.
The Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers (ABRINT) explained that X’s return was due to an update to the application in Cloudflare’s software that uses constantly changing IP addresses.
The previous system used specific IPs, which act like a home address for servers or computers and could be blocked more easily.
The changes “make blocking the app much more complicated,” ABRINT said.
Many of the dynamic IPs “are shared with other legitimate services, such as banks and major online platforms, making it impossible to block an IP without affecting other services,” the group said.
End of the party? Tupperware files for bankruptcy
“Internet providers are in a delicate position” and await technical analysis and instructions from Brazil’s telecommunications agency, ABRINT said.
The shutdown of X in Brazil angered Musk and sparked a heated debate about freedom of expression and the limits of social networks, both inside and outside the country.
The social networking platform has more than 22 million users in Brazil.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes last month ordered X banned after Musk refused to remove dozens of right-wing accounts and then failed to name a new legal representative in the country as ordered.
Moraes has repeatedly clashed with the South African-born billionaire after he was tasked with fighting misinformation.
Last week he ordered the transfer of about $3 million from Musk’s companies to pay X’s fines.
Taiwanese company says Hezbollah pagers made by Hungarian partner explode
Moraes also froze the assets of X and Starlink, which has been operating in Brazil since 2022 – specifically in remote communities in the Amazon – to ensure payment of fines imposed on X for failing to comply with court orders.
Musk reacted angrily to the suspension, calling Moraes a “dictator.”
Moraes also ordered that those using “technological subversions” such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the blocked website could be fined up to $9,000.
“Judge Alexandre de Moraes: I didn’t use a VPN to get in here, I just opened the app for my daily abstinence ritual and saw it worked,” wrote one user on Wednesday X.
Source: AFP