Indonesia Bans Elon Musk’s X Domain Due to Its Involvement in Gambling and Pornography

Elon Musk’s attempt to rebrand Twitter as X is facing obstacles as Indonesia has temporarily blocked X.com due to its laws against gambling and pornography. However, officials believe that the issue lies with the previous owners of the web domain who violated the country’s content regulations. In essence, X failed to ensure that its predecessors had not engaged in activities that would result in national bans.

The stalemate is unlikely to last long. Chief Information Officer Usman Kansong tells the press that X has already been in touch and will send a letter announcing that Twitter will take over X.com. This is more of a formality than a major legal hurdle.

However, this is another indication of how unplanned the transition from Twitter to X was. Meta, Microsoft and many other companies already own trademarks in X, opening the door to lawsuits. X may also have problems with trademark registration and protection. The company has even had trouble replacing signs — a crew pulling down a Twitter sign in San Francisco had to stop due to permit issues, leaving the “er” and the old bird logo intact.

Musk announced the sudden change as part of a broader plan to make Twitter a “super app” like China’s WeChat. In theory, you can use X for payments, messaging, and other tasks that go far beyond social media. The service has also recently tried to steer users toward the $8-a-month Blue subscriptions, both by offering perks (like much longer messages) and limiting existing features.

Indonesia’s momentary ban is not a significant roadblock. However, that still means that about 24 million users can’t even try X.com right now. This may be welcome news for competitors that don’t face similar restrictions, including Meta’s recently launched Threads (already available in Indonesia).