Open source X viewers Nitter & XCancel are offline following cease-and-desist letters
X, previously known as Twitter, has sent cease-and-desist letters to the maintainers of Nitter, an open-source project that let users view X posts without an account or using the official platform. The legal demand required the permanent takedown of all public Nitter instances as well as the removal of the project's code repository.
Following these legal actions, Nitter's primary website is now offline and project development has stopped while maintainers seek legal advice. The team stated they will not be commenting further on the specifics of the case for the time being.
According to claims made in the letter, Nitter is accused of scraping X's user data and bypassing the official API.
In a related move, XCancel, a similar open-source service derived from Nitter, has received an identical cease-and-desist letter from X and has also gone offline. These actions highlight expanded efforts by X to limit third-party access through unofficial channels and reinforce control over how its content is accessed outside official tools.
- Twitter Client
- Free
- Open Source
Related news
External links
- On 24 August 2026 cease and desist letters have been sent by X Corp. demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project's repository.Nitter • Official source
- Nitter, which let you read X posts without using X, is offlineThe Verge
- X sends cease-and-desist to open source project Nitter over alleged scrapingTechCrunch
- This Was a Bad Day for People Who Hate X but Sometimes Like to Read X Posts AnywayGizmodo
- Musk’s X cracks down on third-party tweet browsing toolsCybernews
- Why X has sent a cease-and-desist letter to NitterNewsBytes
Comments
i wonder if Xitter could actually win in the court with it?.. anyway, seeking legal advice is the best idea, because just letting it slide without questions would make the case, and so some companies might use it as an example. oh well. being pro-(F)OSS always meant resisting i guess.
In theory couldnt someone just build a program or browser plugin that simply only requests the same things Nitter and XCancel grab? I don't see why it needs a front server end to accomplish the same thing. Not that I want Xitter to survive or anything outside of fact some art from artists is on it.
Thankfully I switched over to
Mastodon And 
Bluesky 5 years ago so I don’t have to contribute to that dumpster fire anymore and may Elon Musk suffer in paychecks
For real "free speech absolutists", you can fork https://github.com/zedeus/nitter then share your own instance. Just because, you know, you're free to do it.
Stop using centralized private web space, use decentralized network and make your nostr client UX so good normies won't care that you are using a decentralized protocol.
Fuck you Elon! You really transformed this platform to a shitty pile of crap.
So, if you are still posting to Xitter, you are supporting the aforementioned SLAPP censorship to take down libre ways to view.
That controvesial gesture during He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's inanugration is just the tip of the iceberg regarding what Xitter would later become:
Please move away from Xitter and let those proprietary platforms burn and die.