Social media platform routes internet traffic outside of Brazil using a communications network update

Social media platform Twitter/X became accessible to many users in Brazil on Wednesday as an update to its communications network circumvented a block order by the country’s supreme court.

The X update used cloud services offered by third parties, allowing some Brazilian users to take a route outside of the country to reach X, even without a virtual private network, according to Abrint, the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers.

The number of Brazilians accessing X is unknown, according to Abrint. X did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

“I believe the change was probably intentional. Why would X use a third-party service that ends up being slower than its own?” said Basilio Perez, a board member at Abrint.

  • @gedaliyahEnglish
    75•2 months ago

    So much for “law and order”

    • @cm0002English
      7•2 months ago

      Got plenty of popcorn, who wants some? 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿

  • Snot FlickermanEnglish
    28•2 months ago

    I still am struggling to find articles that actually delve into the technical details of how they’re blocking and if it’s any more complicated than a DNS-level block or if they’re also demanding to block that IP range or what. I want to know who the third parties are and what kind of services they’re offering that allow it to be routed around. Damn not being able to speak Portuguese, that’s on me.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      20•2 months ago

      The NYT says X is bypassing the block using Cloudflare, but if they block Cloudflare it means they block 24 million sites in Brazil. (I find it strange Cloudflare is jumping into this mess.)

      Now, those same regulators are trying to figure out how to fight Mr. Musk’s latest workaround.

      Technical experts said it would not be simple. X’s new approach relies on Cloudflare, a major internet-infrastructure provider based in San Francisco, to deliver its site in Brazil. Cloudflare helps route traffic for millions of websites, so blocking it in Brazil would have major consequences for internet users across the nation of 200 million.

      Think of it as if X’s car was blocked in Brazil and so it just began using Uber to get around — and now regulators are weighing whether to block Uber for everyone in response.

      “You can’t just block Cloudflare because you would block half of the internet,” said Basílio Perez, president of Abrint, the trade group for Brazilian internet providers. He said Cloudflare supported more than 24 million websites, including those of the Brazilian government and banks.

      Archived source – https://ghostarchive.org/archive/u7woo

      • @[email protected]English
        52•2 months ago

        I anticipate the Brazilian government will send a nastygram to Cloudflare, which will cause Cloudflare to give Musk an ultimatum of “stop fucking around or we won’t touch your traffic”. And Musk will probably call their bluff, and Cloudflare will not be bluffing.

      • @EvilBitEnglish
        17•2 months ago

        I would assume step 1 is to call out Cloudflare for abetting criminal activity and if they refuse to stop serving Xitter in Brazil, then they too are crassly flouting Brazilian national law and should be banned from the country as well. It would be a brutal showdown, but one would hope that losing ALL OF BRAZIL might hurt the margins enough to make them reconsider.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿English
        -5•2 months ago

        That’s actually fucking hilarious and I’m sure is a badge of honor for Cloudflare.

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          33•2 months ago

          It shouldn’t be tho. Cloudflare is a single business and no single business should EVER have that kind of power over a gov’t.

          It’s Cloudflare’s hubris showing in a very unstrategic way … and I hope Brazil/America/the world calls them on it.

          • Aniki 🌱🌿English
            -9•2 months ago

            I don’t like it either but this is Cloudflare working precisely as it’s intended.

            • @[email protected]OPEnglish
              27•2 months ago

              To help a company that’s been banned by the gov’t.

              I guarantee you if it had been the American gov’t that banned a site and Cloudflare did this, they’d be called into Congress to answer questions immediately.

  • acargitzEnglish
    27•2 months ago

    If the third parties abide by Brazilian law, they should have legal representation in the country and therefore can be pursued for circumventing the law?

  • @[email protected]English
    14•2 months ago

    It sounds like Twitter is hosting their services on several cloud platforms or replication services that weren’t blocked by Brazil. So, users in Brazil just hit the 3rd party platforms and kept going like usual.

    Is that Twitter’s fault and/or on purpose? Don’t know yet, but services like Akamai need to make sure their hosting Twitter doesn’t get them banned in Brazil across the board.

  • Flying SquidMEnglish
    12•2 months ago

    I’m old enough to remember the time when Elon did whatever the governments of Turkey and India wanted him to regarding Twitter.

  • @stolyEnglish
    12•2 months ago

    This is going to go very poorly for X-lover.

  • abff08f4813cEnglish
    1•2 months ago

    Brazil’s national telecommunications agency, Anatel, seemed to think it could restore the block on X. Cloudfare began cooperating with Anatel and said it would isolate X’s internet traffic

    Good to see other internet giants respecting local laws.

    the company said the restoration of service was an “inadvertent and temporary”

    Yeah, right. They just didn’t expect to get caught so quickly. But it’s a sign of how much they need Brazil (that Brazil is winning) that they even dared to try this.