Who are the countries that blocking access to X platform?
Several countries, especially those with authoritarian regimes, are banning X platform, which began to be blocked in Brazil on Saturday due to its role in spreading false information.
This social network, which is also temporarily banned in several countries, has proven its ability to spread information about political protests that took place, for example, in Egypt during the Arab Spring in 2011, in Türkiye in 2014 and 2023, or even in Uzbekistan before and after the 2021 presidential elections.
China banned X (formerly known as Twitter) even before it became a global phenomenon.
The Chinese had been off the platform since June 2009, two days before the 20th anniversary of China’s bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square, and were largely replaced by Weibo and WeChat.
Iranian authorities also banned Twitter following protests over the disputed results of the June 2009 presidential election, a decision that remains in effect 15 years later.
But the app has helped bring news of protest movements abroad, such as those against the oppression of women, at the end of 2022.
Turkmenistan, the highly isolated Central Asian country began blocking Twitter in early 2010, along with many other foreign services and websites.
Internet browsing, which is provided exclusively by the state-owned Turkmen Telecom, is subject to monitoring by the authorities.
North Korea, after courting foreigners interested in the country and opening its own Twitter account in 2010, North Korea blocked the app in April 2016, along with Facebook, YouTube, betting sites and pornography.
Access to the Internet, with the exception of a few government sites, is tightly controlled by the closed regime, which restricts use of the network to a small number of officials.
In Myanmar, (formerly known as Burma) the platform has been inaccessible since February 2021, after it was blocked amid protests against the military coup that ousted the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Since then, the ruling military council has been determined to restrict the internet.
As for Russia, it has also restricted the use of platform by slowing down access to it since 2021, denouncing the spread of illegal content.
The website was then officially blocked in March 2022, immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
However, many Russians use X via a virtual private network (VPN) program that hides the address of the person using the program and thus allows them to circumvent the block.
In Pakistan, the military-backed government has banned the X platform since the February 2024 legislative elections, as it attributed the decision to security reasons.
An opposition account, the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, had posted on the platform allegations of widespread fraud.
In Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected in July despite allegations of fraud, ordered the platform blocked for 10 days on August 9, as protests were violently suppressed across the country.
The ban remains in effect despite the expiration of the deadline.
Finaly, Brazil blocked X, as the blocking was imposed under a court order that included fines of 50,000 riyals (around $8,000) for people who resort to technological tricks to circumvent the blocking, such as using virtual private networks (VPN).
