Some Brazilian users of Elon Musk's X social media platform reported regaining access to the service on Sept. 17 after a nationwide ban on the platform took effect. However, X Global Government Affairs said the restored service was temporary and due to a change of server providers.

According to a statement from X, a recent shift to Cloudflare — a content delivery network and server hosting company — caused the "inadvertent" restoration of service for Brazilian residents.

Spokespeople for the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers (ABRINT) claim that Musk is using Cloudflare to route traffic to the social media company — concealing the platform's IP address in the process.

Source: X Global Government Affairs.

The social media company also expects the restoration to be short-lived and has informed Brazilian users that the service will likely be inaccessible again shortly.

Is a zero-tolerance policy toward X even possible?

Initially, there was speculation that Brazilian X users could still access the social media platform via the Starlink satellite network, which is also controlled by Musk. These hopes were dashed when Starlink announced it was complying with the court order and would block access to X in the country.

As part of the sweeping order from Alexandre De Moraes, Brazilian users attempting to access X by using a virtual private network (VPN) would face fines of 50,000 Brazilian reais ($8,900) per day.

This stipulation faced widespread blowback inside Brazil, with some legal experts opining that it would be "nearly impossible" for law enforcement officials or the legal system to prove residents were using VPNs to circumvent the law. VPN provider Surfshark echoed this sentiment — recently telling Cointelegraph that it would be difficult to enforce such laws from a technical standpoint.

The rise of decentralized alternatives

Elon Musk's clash with Brazilian officials has put the issue of online free speech in sharper focus and is driving users to embrace decentralized alternatives.

Shortly following the X ban in Brazil, Bluesky — a decentralized social media platform — reported adding 1 million users in three days. Bluesky also announced that daily peak traffic surged 15 times over and attributed the increased traffic to the X ban.

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