Brazil plans to fine anyone who tries to use X via VPN

Nearly $9,000 per day.
 By 
Alex Perry
 on 
X app in front of Brazilian flag
If you want to use X in Brazil, you better be ready to pay up. Credit: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Brazil is serious about this ban of Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter).

After banning the social network within its borders, one nugget in the New York Times' report about the story stands out: Anyone who tries to access X in Brazil using technical workarounds like VPNs will be fined substantially. To be more specific, those people could be fined as much as nearly $9,000 per day for using X in Brazil.

While a large country's supreme court banning a social network may sound excessive (as if such a thing could happen here), the story of how it happened doesn't exactly paint X and Musk in a positive light. Brazil's government ordered the site to stop hosting disinformation, Musk called it "censorship," and eventually things escalated from there. On Wednesday of this week, X (which shut down its Brazil operations earlier this year) was ordered by Brazil to appoint a legal representative in the country within 24 hours; X did not do this. As such, X is now banned in Brazil.


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And if you try to get around that ban, you'll have to pay up. Be careful.

journalist alex perry looking at a smartphone
Alex Perry
Tech Reporter

Alex Perry is a tech reporter at Mashable who primarily covers video games and consumer tech. Alex has spent most of the last decade reviewing games, smartphones, headphones, and laptops, and he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. He is also a Pisces, a cat lover, and a Kansas City sports fan. Alex can be found on Bluesky at yelix.bsky.social.

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