X is back online for many in Brazil, more than two weeks after the service was blocked in the country. However, this change has not happened because the Brazilian government has changed its stance on the Elon Musk-owned platform.
Instead, it seems that X has started using Cloudflare’s DNS service, which is helping the social network to evade the Brazilian government’s restrictions for now, though it’s unclear how long this will continue.
In a statement, a X spokesperson described it as an “unintentional and temporary service restoration” in the country and expects it to be unavailable again “soon.”
X has been blocked in Brazil since late August, when Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered internet service providers in the country to block X following months of public spat with Musk over X’s refusal to block some accounts. The controversy also affected SpaceX-owned Starlink, which had its Brazilian bank accounts frozen amid the controversy.
“When X shut down in Brazil, our infrastructure for providing service in Latin America was no longer accessible to our team,” a spokesperson for X said in a statement. “To continue providing optimal service to our users, we changed network providers.
This change resulted in an inadvertent and temporary loss of service for Brazilian users. While we expect the platform to be inaccessible again in Brazil soon, we continue efforts to work with the Brazilian government to bring service back to Brazilians very soon.”
The New York Times reported that X began coming online again for many in Brazil on Wednesday, although service was still somewhat inconsistent, the Times reported. It was the company’s move to Cloudflare that enabled it to come back, at least temporarily.
As it is, Brazil’s ISPs are presumably figuring out how to continue complying with the court order. If they fail, Brazilian authorities may look for new ways to enforce the block. The country’s regulators have imposed hefty fines on users who attempt to circumvent the country’s ban by using VPNs.