from the cat-and-mouse dept

ExTwitter’s Brazil Ban Evasion: Cloudflare’s CDN Becomes Latest Battleground

Update: Annnnnnnnd… Cloudflare has already said it will isolate and block Brazilian IP addresses from reaching ExTwitter. Original story below.

It appears that Elon has decided to take the Brazilian hornet’s nest he’d already kicked over the last few weeks and start slamming it with a baseball bat. It’s unlikely this will end well.

I’ve been pretty clear that I don’t think either Elon Musk or Brazil look very good coming out of the fight in which ExTwitter got blocked in Brazil. The process Brazil used, while legal in that country, has some deeply problematic components regarding due process and a lack of transparency. But, at the same time, Elon’s method of handling the situation also lacks both basic diplomacy and consistency.

Musk has made it clear that he’s fine bowing down to government orders to reveal information or to block users. Indeed, he’s insisted (stupidly, but whatever) that he thinks free speech means whatever the country’s laws allow:

Just a few weeks ago, he reiterated that stance as he was fighting with Brazil.

Of course, Elon was willing to obey similar orders from Turkey and India. It’s only when he disagrees, ideologically, with the government of a country, such as Brazil, when he suddenly decides to pretend to be a free speech martyr.

Even then, there were likely better ways to protest the secret court orders that ExTwitter was receiving. However, Elon decided to continually mock and poke at the judge, Alexandre de Moraes. He posted memes of de Moraes. He made fun of him. He called him a dictator. He released what he called “the Alexandre Files” to reveal at least some of the demands that were sent to the company (though often without context).

There are principled ways to stand up for free speech and push back against excessive government demands. But it does not appear that Elon cared to bother with such an approach.

That said, Brazil’s approach has been problematic as well. There are serious due process concerns about a single Supreme Court judge being able to sign orders to block content, even if it’s possible for those orders to be reviewed by a large segment of the court at a later date. Furthermore, allowing a single judge to order a block of an entire site and/or the jailing of a local representative and/or the seizing of another company’s assets all seem problematic.

The fact that de Moraes’ original order effectively banned VPNs in the Google/Apple app stores (even if that was quickly put on temporary hold) should at least give you a sense as to how this kind of power has a high likelihood of abuse.

However, now it’s being reported that ExTwitter quietly put its service behind Cloudflare’s CDN, enabling people in Brazil to access it again, at least for a little bit.

A news release from ABRINT explains how Musk was able to outfox the country’s ban allowing people to access the platform.

It says the X app was updated overnight and the new software started using IP address linked through Cloudfare, which “makes app blocking much more complicated”.

“Unlike the previous system, which used specific, blockable IPs, the new system uses dynamic IPs that change constantly,” the news release states. “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.”

The BBC says this is ExTwitter “outfoxing” Brazil, but it seems very unlikely to last very long.

The original order from de Moraes makes it pretty clear that all levels of infrastructure providers must stop Brazilian IP addresses from reaching ExTwitter’s services. I would imagine that, if it hasn’t already, Cloudflare will be quickly receiving a notification from Brazil’s Supreme Court that it needs to do something about this or face legal consequences.

I have no idea if Cloudflare has a legal representative in Brazil. However, that rep could face jail, since the Brazilian Supreme Court seems to enjoy putting tech company employees in jail. Alternatively, it could face fines or the nuclear option: banning all Cloudflare IPs in Brazil. That would create quite a mess for people in Brazil who want to use the internet, as a huge portion of the internet (including Techdirt) relies on Cloudflare for CDN services.

The most likely outcome is that either Cloudflare boots ExTwitter from its services or quickly works out a way to block traffic coming from Brazil from reaching the service.

Of course, this still isn’t great. I know some people who simply dislike Musk or ExTwitter will cheer on this result, but, again, consider what other countries are the ones that regularly ban apps and demand third party tech providers help them. It tends not to be the kinds of countries generally seen as big on freedoms: China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and more. Brazil has been big on freedom, and internet freedom specifically, over the years, so this situation isn’t great for anyone.

Either way, I trust that if Cloudflare does receive such a demand from the Brazilian Supreme Court, its response would be at least a bit more diplomatic than Elon posting AI-generated memes about de Moraes.