Brazil has ordered the takedown of Twitter. While not shocking, what did shock observers was the takedown of VPN services in the process.
Let’s get one thing straight: Elon Musk is doing a lot to run X/Twitter into the ground. Between firing employees for daring to disagree with him, taking his own servers offline multiple times, re-instating neo-nazis while banning his critics, driving advertisers away from the platform only to only to sue them after for leaving, and overall turning X/Twitter into a right wing echo chamber among other things, the stupidity of many of Musk’s decisions knows no bounds.
It’s ultimately no surprise the situation with Brazil and X/Twitter is a mess. A Brazilian judge ordered Musk to take down accounts accused of allegedly spreading misinformation. Musk, for his part, refused to comply. So, the judge ordered that a representative appear before the court to move the case forward. Musk responded by refusing to do so. That led to the events we have seen very recently where a judge has ordered the blocking of X/Twitter across Brazil. From the BBC:
X, formerly Twitter, has been banned in Brazil after failing to meet a deadline set by a Supreme Court judge to name a new legal representative in the country.
Alexandre de Moraes ordered the “immediate and complete suspension” of the social media platform until it complies with all court orders and pays existing fines.
Reacting to the decision, X owner Elon Musk said: “Free speech is the bedrock of democracy and an unelected pseudo-judge in Brazil is destroying it for political purposes.”
The social media network is said to be used by at least a 10th of the nation’s 200 million inhabitants.
By Saturday morning some users had reported access to the platform was no longer possible.
It closed its office in Brazil earlier this month, saying its representative had been threatened with arrest if she did not comply with orders it described as “censorship” – as well as illegal under Brazilian law.
It’s really hard to have any sympathy for Musk in this instance. Whether or not you agree with the direction a court is going, simply refusing court orders because you feel you are above the law is generally a bad idea all around. That pretty much goes without saying. At the very least, have a team of lawyers try and change the situation and possibly appeal the decision (if that’s an option). Failing that, say Brazilian laws need to change. You might argue that the outcome would’ve been the same, but at least you come out ahead on the PR front at least to a degree. Just snubbing a judge and ignoring what is going on in the country is just a plain bad idea all around.
So, it’s no real surprise that X/Twitter is blocked in the country for its (arguably very lucky residents) as many apparently are seeking alternatives and a bulk of them are apparently heading to Mastodon and Bluesky. From The Verge:
The Bluesky app looks and functions a lot like X, but it’s a decentralized social media platform that’s built on the AT Protocol (which is also developed by Bluesky). In a 5:12PM ET post, Frazee said that Bluesky is seeing 1,000 events per second — a “new milestone” — on its “relay,” which essentially functions as the firehose of data for the platform. On Friday night, Bluesky said it had 500,000 new users “in the last two days.”
Mastodon.social has been seeing “an uptick in sign-ups and overall traffic” from Brazil over the last 48 hours, Mastodon CEO and founder Eugen Rochko tells The Verge. “We used to get nearly 0 sign-ups from Brazil and now it’s up to 3.55k” on Saturday, Rochko says. He also notes that there could be additional growth on third-party servers, but because Mastodon is a decentralized social network, Mastodon (the company) doesn’t have visibility into that.
Brazilian residents are no doubt going to find that it is possible to have a better social media experience by moving to these alternatives. It is possible to experience social media without all the far right wing rage farming 24/7. I know because that was the most immediately obvious thing I encountered when I moved to an alternative.
At any rate, none of that is particularly controversial in my mind. What is particularly controversial and took a lot of observers by surprise was what the Brazilian judge did along with banning X/Twitter in the country. In the process, they ordered app stores to remove VPN (Virtual Private Network) service apps and threatened to fine anyone caught using a VPN to get around the ban. From APNews:
De Moraes said X will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and he also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access it. Some legal experts questioned the grounds for that decision and how it would be enforced. Others suggested the move was authoritarian.
The Brazilian Bar Association said Friday in a statement that it would request the Supreme Court review the fines imposed on all citizens using VPNs or other means to access X without due process. The bar argued that sanctions should never be imposed summarily before ensuring an adversarial process and the right to full defense.
“I’ve used VPNs a lot in authoritarian countries like China to continue accessing news sites and social networks,” Maurício Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said on the platform before its shutdown. “It never occurred to me that this type of tool would be banned in Brazil. It’s dystopian.”
A search Friday on X showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially enable them to continue using the platform by making it appear they are logging on from outside the country.
Trying to block the use of VPN services is especially problematic. For one, a lot of businesses – especially businesses that operate in several locations around the world – use VPN services to get around, ironically, government censorship. Using a VPN service is not inherently illegal. What’s more, many people use VPN services to add a layer of privacy (whether that belief is justified or not is up for debate of course). Further, it’s hard to really see how banning the use of VPN services and threatening users with fines. Like, how does one even come close to enforcing that, anyway?
It’s not just me that was perplexed by the move. Here’s Mike Masnick of Techdirt:
Apparently, he was willing to go even further, to the point of potentially blocking VPNs entirely.
On Friday, it was announced that ExTwitter would indeed be banned across Brazil. But what may be most interesting (or, rather, scary) is the method. First, ISPs and app stores have been ordered to block access to the app within five days. That’s not all that new, even if it is generally problematic. Countries simply should not be banning apps on the open internet.
But then it gets worse. The original ruling said that app stores are also told they need to ban VPNs. Here’s a translation of the order.
(2.1) APPLE and GOOGLE in Brazil to insert technological obstacles capable of making it impossible for users of the IOS (APPLE) and ANDROID (GOOGLE) systems to use the “X” application and remove the “X” application from the APPLE STORE and GOOGLE PLAY STORE stores and, similarly, in relation to applications that enable the use of VPN (‘virtual private network’), such as, for example: Proton VPN, Express VPN, NordVPN, Surfshark, TOTALVPN, Atlas VPN, Bitdefender VPN;
(2.2) That manage backbone access services in Brazil, so that they insert technological obstacles capable of making it impossible for users of the “X” application to use it;
(2.3) Internet service providers, represented by their Presidents, such as ALGAR TELECOM, OI, SKY, LIVE TIM, VIVO, CLARO, NET VIRTUA, GVT, etc…, to insert technological obstacles capable of making the use of the “X” application unfeasible; and
(2.4) Those who manage personal mobile service and switched fixed telephone service, to insert technological obstacles capable of making the use of the “X” application unfeasible;
I initially thought that first section couldn’t possibly mean that app stores also had to ban VPNs. But that’s what it pretty clearly says and what multiple Brazilian reports claim.
The end result is taking away VPNs from millions of Brazilians, which is an awful lot of collateral damage just because Elon Musk is a jackass. VPNs have many legitimate uses other than accessing ExTwitter after a ban in Brazil.
Apparently, the order to block VPN services in the country was walked back for now. Still, the fact that this was even considered in the first place, let alone put in place, is quite the scary development.
Whenever it comes to government trying to block certain content or a specific service, the question often comes up how the government plans to block that content. The immediate thing that comes to mind for some is if the government intends on banning encrypted services like VPN services as well. That’s where the skepticism really takes off given the practical implications of such an effort. Yet, here is an example where an attempt like that was actually made – even if temporarily. It’s quite an escalation on trying to control speech to say the least – even if you believe blocking X/Twitter is the right call.
Another thing to consider is the fact that blocking X/Twitter really should have been enough in the first place. There’s definitely a good healthy list of people out there who don’t use a VPN service. As a result, the order is effective for that portion of individuals. If the hope is to stop the spread of misinformation, then if a huge portion of the population has no access to the content, then you can pretty much count it as “mission accomplished” if you honestly believe that blocking X/Twitter is going to accomplish this goal (yes, that was a reference to George W. Bush).
One hopes this doesn’t inspire other countries to consider VPNs fair game in their quest to target web services. Yes, some countries are doing so already, but the last thing we need is more countries looking at a ruling like this and concluding that blocking and banning VPNs is a justified action. This gets us into very dangerous territory that will not only cause a lot of collateral damage, but will also ultimately be a losing battle for government in the process. Let’s just hope that this doesn’t become a thing in the future, here.
