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Nitter and XCancel shut down after X legal action

Nitter's GitHub page was archived and XCancel suspended its service again following a new development in ongoing legal proceedings with X.

  • Nitter's GitHub page was archived on Friday, 11 September, making it read-only.
  • XCancel shut down on Monday and said it was required to suspend service until further notice.
  • X sent Nitter a cease-and-desist letter last month over alleged unlawful use and circumvention of its API.

Nitter and XCancel, privacy-friendly services for viewing X posts without an account, appear to be dead after X's latest legal actions. Nitter's GitHub page was archived on Friday, 11 September, putting it in read-only status so it can no longer be modified or updated.

XCancel shut its service down on Monday and published a message on its home page: "Unfortunately, due to a new development in the ongoing legal proceedings, we are required to suspend this service again until further notice."

Last month, X sent Nitter a cease-and-desist letter over its alleged "unlawful use and circumvention" of X's API and associated data. X said Nitter had scraped the social network's data to access accounts and session tokens in violation of its rules.

Despite the threat, Nitter said on its GitHub page that "following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue." In early September, both Nitter and XCancel were up and running again after a short pause.

Nitter worked by fetching public X posts and stripping out ads, tracking cookies and JavaScript, giving people a way to read posts without an account or the social network's app. Nitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Why this matters: The closures remove a way for people to view X posts without logging in or using the social network's app.

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