X users in Brazil temporarily regained access. Elon Musk’s company says it was accidental.
Demand for VPNs has surged in Brazil following the country’s ban on Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
Elon Musk’s X says it accidentally restored temporary access to the social media platform in Brazil on Wednesday, just weeks after it was banned in the country.
The company’s Global Government Affairs account posted on Wednesday night that it had changed network providers, resulting in “an inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users.”
The post said, “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.”
The Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers (ABRINT) said in a statement on Wednesday that access to the platform was temporarily restored following an overnight update.
X users who had the app on their phone in Brazil got an automatic update, ABRINT said, which meant they were now accessing X via an IP addresses linked to cybersecurity firm Cloudfare. This made “blocking the app much more complicated,” the country’s trade group for internet service providers added.
However, Basílio Rodriguez Pérez, an advisor to ABRINT, told the BBC that X’s actions seemed intentional.
“Everything that happened during the day led us to believe that it was on purpose,” Pérez said.
The incident comes amid a feud between Musk and Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes that centers around content moderation concerns and free speech. X initially agreed to remove over 100 accounts flagged for hate speech, misinformation, and attacks on democracy but said it would “challenge the orders legally when possible.”
Musk then said in April that he was reversing the restrictions, saying in an X post that “principles matter more than profit.” Moraes responded that Musk would face a hefty fine each time an account was reactivated, French news outlet AFP reported.
Moraes also said the billionaire would be investigated for obstruction of justice after refusing to remove the accounts and content related to far-right groups. X was then banned in Brazil last month following an order from Moraes. In response, Musk closed X’s Brazil offices and refused to comply with an order to name a legal representative in the country.
The Supreme Court judge threatened Brazilians with daily fines of about $8,900 if they tried to bypass the ban by using VPNs to access the platform, The New York Times reported.
X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from B-17, made outside normal working hours.
