Some Brazilian users regained access to X on Wednesday despite a nationwide ban put in place by the country’s Supreme Court, a reunion apparently resulting from the social network changing the way its servers are accessed.

But the renewed access may be short-lived.

Late last month, Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X blocked nationwide after months of tension with the site’s billionaire owner Elon Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. De Moraes also set fines for anyone using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access the platform.

That rendered X effectively inaccessible in the country until Wednesday, when an Associated Press journalist was among those who regained access. The number of X posts made in Brazil rose from 939,000 Tuesday to more than 2 million by late afternoon Wednesday, data analysis company Bites said.

Experts examining X’s IP addresses—numeric designations that identifies sites’ location on the internet—said there are indications the company has begun routing users through the servers of Cloudflare, a content delivery network, en route to its own.

“The service that Elon Musk’s social network has started using works like a ‘digital shield’ that protects the company’s servers,” Pedro Diogenes, Latin America’s technical director for CLM, a distributor that focuses on cybersecurity. It acts as a proxy between users and X’s servers, filtering traffic and preventing the original IP address from being recognized, Diogenes told the AP.

Brazil’s telecommunications regulator Anatel said it is looking into the situation and will report its findings to the Supreme Court, noting that there has been no change to de Moraes’ ruling. A panel of fellow justices later upheld his decision, though it hasn’t yet gone before the court’s full bench. His fine for VPN users in particular has faced blowback, including from the nation’s bar association.

The Supreme Court declined to comment on possible actions it could take. X said on its platform that the shutdown in Brazil affected service to Latin America as a whole, so it swapped network providers.

“This change resulted in an inadvertent and temporary service restoration to Brazilian users,” the Wednesday evening statement said. “We expect the platform to be inaccessible again shortly.”

Earlier Wednesday, former President Jair Bolsonaro celebrated the return of the social network with a post from his account. He has sided with Musk in the feud with de Moraes and sought to portray the ban as censorship from an overzealous judge.

Some Brazilian X users also trumpeted the platform’s return—with several addressing de Moraes directly, vowing that they weren’t using a VPN. There have been no reports of fines being levied against people using VPNs.

Cloudflare, a security company that prides itself on providing services to websites regardless of their content, has a history of protecting sites other companies won’t touch. But only to a point. In 2017, for instance, it dropped the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer as a customer following a deadly clash at a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. And in 2022, it dropped the notorious stalking and harassment site Kiwi Farms citing an “immediate threat to human life.”

But X is a mainstream social media platform—even if it may be home to some extremist content—and it is not yet clear whether Brazil’s ban would be enough for San Francisco-based Cloudflare to abandon it.

Cloudflare has a reputation for cooperating with governments, however, and so may comply with an order from the Supreme Court to cease serving as X’s proxy, David Nemer, who specializes in the anthropology of technology at the University of Virginia, told the AP.

Ordering internet service providers to block Cloudflare would be impossible, since thousands of Brazilian companies depend on it, Nemer previously wrote on Bluesky, another social media platform.

A person close to Cloudflare, who was not authorized to speak publicly about a business relationship, said the network services provider did not do anything specifically to help X get around Brazil’s ban. Rather, X recently switched to Cloudflare from another provider, which could be a reason the block is not working.

This person added that the workaround likely won’t last long.

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Part of many people’s pandemic experience included working from home. Even after lockdowns, videoconferencing remains a big part of life as people continue to work remotely, connect with families and friends online, and attend virtual events hosted on videoconferencing platforms.

Spending hours on video calls, however, can be exhausting and manifest as physical, emotional, or cognitive tiredness—a phenomenon known as videoconferencing fatigue (VF). Now, researchers in Singapore have asked if a relationship between virtual backgrounds and VF exists and what the underlying mechanisms are.

“We show that the use of different types and contents of virtual backgrounds can contribute to VF,” said Heng Zhang, co-author of the study published in Frontiers in Psychology and a researcher at the Nanyang Technological University Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

“Users who utilize video virtual backgrounds experience higher levels of VF compared to those who use image or blurred virtual backgrounds.”

Tiring backgrounds

The researchers carried out a survey with more than 600 participants in which they asked people whether they use virtual backgrounds, and what type of background (static image, blurred image, video, or no virtual background) they choose.

The researchers also measured VF using a five-point scale that indicated levels of general, visual, social, motivational, and emotional fatigue. Participants were aged between 22 and 76 years and worked from home around three days a week.

The results showed that participants who use video backgrounds experienced the highest levels of VF. Users who use blurred backgrounds also experienced higher VF than those who use static images.

“Our brains automatically react to new information in the environment. This consumes cognitive resources, which then increases cognitive load and consequently leads to VF,” Zhang explained.

The key, the researchers said, is how much new information is contained in the background.

“Image backgrounds initially present new information, but users might gradually shift their attention elsewhere. Blurred backgrounds don’t introduce new information, but occasionally users may catch glimpses of the real environment, which presents new information. Video backgrounds, however, continuously introduce new information, constantly interrupting users’ attention and putting a demand on cognitive resources.”

Virtual nature

In addition to the type of background, the environment that is depicted in the background can also influence VF.

“Users who use nature-themed backgrounds report lower levels of VF compared to others,” Zhang said. Other backgrounds, such as office settings or public spaces can increase users’ pressure to self-present as if they actually were in one of those settings, leading to increased fatigue.

“In a work setting, a nature-themed image background might be the ideal choice,” Zhang pointed out.

When being on calls in relaxed settings, participants who used lighthearted and funny backgrounds reported the lowest VF levels. It is important that users choose backgrounds appropriately, as different contexts call for different types of backgrounds, the authors said.

Making thoughtful choices could not only enhance meeting effectiveness, but also improve the users’ psychological experience, reducing the fatigue associated with videoconferencing.

Optimizing video calls

Their study provides a scientific foundation for further optimizing the videoconferencing experience and helping users make more informed choices, the researchers said. These insights may be especially valuable to users who use video calls in their work and could help them maintain well-being while maximizing the benefits of this way of working.

Nevertheless, the authors said that further study is needed to focus on how different age groups and video call purposes influence the relationship between virtual backgrounds and VF. In addition—and despite the fact that many people spend significant amounts of time watching themselves when on a video call—the role of other users’ backgrounds on VF needs to be investigated.

“A more comprehensive understanding of the role of virtual backgrounds in videoconferencing could provide more targeted recommendations for future research and practice,” concluded Zhang.