X resumed operations in Brazil earlier this week, following a three-week ban imposed by Brazil’s Supreme Court at the request of Elon Musk. This led to X Corp. being fined nearly $1 million daily as long as the platform was accessible in the country.
Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince clarified to TechCrunch that X’s return to online activity in Brazil was coincidental. Prince stated in an interview that the transition was not a deliberate effort to bypass the Brazilian block, but rather a shift from one IT vendor to another.
Several months ago, Cloudflare secured a deal to provide X with cloud computing services in various regions, including Brazil, replacing Fastly as the previous service provider. This transition caused a change in IP addresses linked to X, causing disruptions in how Brazilian ISPs were blocking access to the platform.
Prince emphasized that Cloudflare had no intention of assisting X in circumventing the Brazilian ban and labelled the situation as a strange coincidence resulting from a business deal made months prior.
Brazilian regulators acknowledged Cloudflare’s cooperation in assisting with the reblocking of X following its accidental unblocking in the country.
When X switched from Fastly to Cloudflare, the block implemented by Brazilian ISPs became ineffective. However, Prince clarified that Cloudflare was unaware of this outcome and criticized Brazil’s approach to blocking X as fragile and prone to easy circumvention.
