Nitter No More? X Sends in the Lawyers to Shut Down Open Source Project
Nitter and XCancel stopped operating after X accused them of scraping data and accessing account tokens, according to reporting.
- On Tuesday, Nitter shut down after receiving a "cease and desist" letter from X Corp on August 24, demanding a permanent takedown of the open-source project and its repositories.
- X Corp accused Nitter of the "unlawful use and circumvention of X's Application Programming Interface and associated data," citing the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and federal trademark statutes.
- Nitter functioned as an "alternative Twitter front-end" focused on privacy, letting readers view posts without accounts, though it lacked infinite scrolling and notifications found on the official platform.
- Nitter's developer, Zedeus, stopped development "for the time being" while "seeking legal advice," and XCancel and other Nitter-reliant platforms also suspended operations until further notice.
- Nearly all popular instances were offline by Wednesday, yet the open-source code remains available, meaning X would need to send individual letters to any new hosts that emerge.
14 Articles
14 Articles
X's Legal Strike Ends Nitter, the Privacy Tool That Let Users Read Posts Without Logging In
X has fired a legal shot that appears to have killed one of the last major ways to browse its platform anonymously. On August 24, 2026, the company sent cease-and-desist letters to the developers and operators of Nitter. The open-source project, once a popular alternative frontend, is now offline. Its GitHub repository stands archived. Public instances have gone dark. The End of a Seven-Year Run The message on nitter.net is brief and final. “On …
X shuts Nitter down with cease-and-desist letters
X Corp has sent cease-and-desist letters to Nitter, the open-source project that let people read X posts without an account. Nitter.net is offline and development has stopped. Its creator says he is seeking legal advice. XCancel, the best-known site built on Nitter, has also stopped operating. Sarah Perez has read one of the letters and […] This story continues at The Next Web
Nitter no more? X sends in the lawyers to shut down open source project
X, the social media mouthpiece of free speech absolutist Elon Musk, has reportedly sent legal takedown notices to Nitter and related service XCancel over alleged data scraping and rules violations. XCancel's home page now contains some minimal text stating: "On Monday 24th August at 8 PM EST, we received at [sic] letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel." It says the service has been halted "until further notice." Nitte…
Cease-And-Desist From X Shuts Down Nitter And XCancel—Sites That Scraped And Mirrored Tweets
XCancel, which let users read X posts and feeds without visiting the social website or app, was popular on forums where links to X were banned in protest against its owner Elon Musk.
X Corp has sent a letter of cessation and withdrawal demanding the closure of the Nitter open source project, which has ceased its services after being accused of unlawful use of the X API, as well as of extracting data from the social network and accessing user login accounts and tokens.
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