Sept. 19 (UPI) — The social media platform X was temporarily available again in Brazil amid a ban as the result of an update to its servers, the company said.
The Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers, or ABRINT, said that X users with the social media app on their smartphones received an automatic update, allowing them to access the platform after X began using IP addresses linked to the Cloudflare service.
“Switching to Cloudflare makes app blocking much more complicated,” ABRINT said. “Unlike the previous system, which used specific IPs that could be blocked, the new system uses dynamic IPs that change constantly.
“Many of these IPs are shared with other legitimate services, such as banks and large Internet platforms, making it impossible to block an IP without affecting other services.”
ABRINT said local providers cannot take action on their own without officials’ guidance from Brazilian officials because a mistaken block could affect other companies. For now, Brazilian authorities are waiting for a technical analysis and instructions to determine how to move forward and turn X off again.
X’s Global Government Affairs confirmed that it switched to Cloudflare after a ban on the platform in Brazil left its infrastructure to provide service to Latin America no longer accessible in Brazil.
“To continue providing optimal service to our users, we changed network providers,” X said in a message on its platform. “This change resulted in an inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users.”
X said it expected the platform to be “inaccessible again shortly” in Brazil due to the ban imposed after he tech giant’s owner Elon Mush refused to name a representative in the country that officials can confront to address concerns. The court decision on Sept. 2 left the country’s 40 million X users without the social media platform until Wednesday.
“We continue efforts to work with the Brazilian government to return very soon for the people of Brazil.
