Elon Musk’s chaotic Twitter rebrand got the site blocked in Indonesia where X.com was once linked with porn or gambling, says report
CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
- Elon Musk has rebranded Twitter as 'X,' using a new domain — X.com.
- This has caused issues in Indonesia, where users are unable to access X.com, per Al Jazeera.
- The government said the domain had been used by websites that didn't adhere to its regulations.
Twitter's rebrand as 'X' hasn't quite gone to plan in Indonesia, where the site has been temporarily blocked because the domain was previously used by websites that posted "negative" content, Al Jazeera reported.
Elon Musk announced on Sunday that the domain X.com, which he previously used for PayPal, had started redirecting users to Twitter.
But according to Al Jazeera, millions of Indonesians were subsequently unable to access the social media platform due to the country's strict rules that aim to curb online pornography and gambling.
A screenshot shared by a Twitter user appears to show a page saying that the website had been blocked by Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Informatics for violating local laws and regulations.
—Eno Negatif Lari-Larian (@Eno_Bening) July 24, 2023
The ministry told Al Jazeera that the X.com domain had previously been used by websites that did not adhere to the country's regulations against "negative" content.
The ministry tends to block websites that are considered to be "offensive, criminal, or dangerous to social harmony," Gatria Priyandita, a cyber policy analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera.
This includes websites with adult content, Priyandita said, per the news outlet.
Aribowo Sasmito, the cofounder of MAFINDO, a fact-checking group, told Al Jazeera that he believes the website was blocked because it sounded like "XXX," a porn site.
X.com began as an online bank founded by Musk in 1999, before it merged with Peter Thiel's Confinity to become PayPal. The company was bought by eBay, which in 2014 used the domain for "x.commerce, an eBay Inc. company," before Musk repurchased it in 2017, Insider's Pete Syme reported.
The director-general of information and public communication at Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Informatics, Usman Kansong, told Al Jazeera that he has been in contact with Elon Musk's company to try to get to grips with the situation.
"Earlier today, we spoke with representatives from Twitter and they will send a letter to us to say that X.com will be used by Twitter," Kansong said, per Al Jazeera.
X did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Insider also reported on Monday that X.com was seemingly redirecting some users, including cofounder Jack Dorsey, to a GoDaddy ad.