Brazil fines Musk’s X for site’s return after ban

The company moved its service back to its previous provider on Thursday afternoon, according to the ABRINT internet provider association, which said it noticed the change while testing to block the new servers.

X and Cloudflare have not yet confirmed the move, but ABRINT said X’s public DNS (Domain Name System) indicated a return.

Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes had described the company as having committed a “trick” in re-enabling access for some users.

He then fined X and Mr Musk’s other company, the internet satellite firm Starlink, more than $920,000 (£695,000) for each day X operates in Brazil.

But it’s unclear if the court can enforce payment of the fine or will seek payment now that service has been return to its previous servers.

Mr Musk’s firms have previously ignored Brazilian court orders, including the court order from Justice de Moraes which led to the social media site being banned in the first place in August.

Explaining the sudden access for some users on Wednesday, X said a change of network providers had “resulted in an inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users”.

“While we expect the platform to be inaccessible again in Brazil soon, we continue efforts to work with the Brazilian government to return very soon for the people of Brazil,” an X spokesperson said in a statement.

The company’s explanation had caught some observers by surprise.

“Everything that happened during the day led us to believe that it was on purpose,” said Basílio Rodriguez Pérez, advisor to ABRINT, the country’s leading trade group for Internet Service Providers (ISP).

ABRINT said X moved to servers hosted by Cloudflare, and that the site appeared to be using dynamic internet protocol (IP) addresses that change constantly, indicating to him that the change in access to Brazilian users was purposeful.

By contrast, the previous system had relied on specific IP addresses that could be more easily blocked.

Mr Rodriguez Pérez, ABRINT advisor, said those dynamic IP addresses could also be linked to critical services within Brazil.

“Many of these IP [addresses] are shared with other legitimate services, such as banks and large internet platforms, making it impossible to block an IP [address] without affecting other services.”

That includes the service PIX, which millions of Brazilians depend on to make digital payments.

Despite the change, some experts said Cloudflare was well-positioned to help Brazil reinforce the ban.

“Actually, I think the ban would be even more effective if Cloudflare really cooperates with the government,” said Felipe Autran, a constitutional lawyer in Brasilia, the country’s capital.

“I think they will, since they are such a huge provider for many Brazilian enterprises and also the government.”