X Corp's letters take Nitter offline, and ask for the source code to go with it
The cease-and-desist gave roughly 21 hours and named the repository, not just the running instances. Account-free reading of X is now a paid API key or a DSA application.
The Product Desk
What happened
- X Corp sent cease-and-desist letters to Nitter; the flagship site is offline and development has stopped after seven years.
- XCancel, the most widely shared site built on Nitter, says it has stopped operating until further notice.
- X's lawyers invoke the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and the Lanham Act, and say the list is not exhaustive.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint Reading a public X post without an account or the app no longer has a free path, so archiving and citation work now needs a login or a paid key.
- Who has to decide decision Moderators of spaces that forbid direct X links have to pick between allowing the link they banned and dropping the quoted post entirely.
- Who's exposed exposure Naming the repository puts packagers, mirrors and forks in the addressable set, not only whoever runs the busiest instance.
- What it sets up precedent A next-day letter achieves a takedown without a court testing the theory, which is the attractive route while scraping rulings such as the SerpApi dismissal cut the other way.
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A blocked endpoint and a letter from lawyers do different work. In February 2024 X closed several of the methods Nitter used to reach posts, including a guest account feature, and the flagship instance stopped working; hosts reattached their instances to real X accounts, and the service came back in 2025 [12]. Code survives that kind of block. The letters that arrived on 24 August ask for a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and of the project's repository, which has been on GitHub since 2019 [2][14], and the instrument this time is X's lawyers rather than a technical restriction [13].
There is a circularity in the accusation. X says it holds evidence that Nitter scraped its data and reached X accounts and session tokens in breach of its rules [5]. Reaching X accounts is what X's own 2024 change left hosts to do: once the guest method closed, an instance needed a real account behind it [12][25].
The two published readings of the letter do not describe the same demand. Notebookcheck reports the notice as a letter received on 24 August at 8 PM EST asking Nitter to stop operating XCancel [4]. The notice on Nitter's own site, as read by TechCrunch's Sarah Perez, describes a permanent takedown of instances and of the repository, with a deadline of 5pm Eastern on 25 August [2][8][24]. That is about 21 hours of notice [23]. If the wider reading is the operative one, then everyone who packaged or hosted a copy is inside the demand, and the developer has said other instances received similar letters [15].
What teams lose is a fetch path, not content. Nitter pulled public posts and stripped the ads, cookies and JavaScript, so a reader got a page without an account or the app [10]; there was no home feed, no notifications and no way to log in or post [11]. Forums that ban direct links to X leaned on it as the way to quote a post without sending anyone to X [17]. The remaining routes are the official API and, for European work, the Digital Services Act requirement that very large platforms give vetted researchers access [19]. One of those has a price, the other has an application queue.
Whether the claim would win is a separate question from whether the letter works. A US court dismissed Google's scraping claim against SerpApi in July [20], and the statutes X cites, a Texas computer-access law and the federal trademark act, do not obviously reach a server in the European Union [6][18]. Forbes counted nearly all popular instances down by Wednesday morning, with one exception hosted in Singapore [16], and Gizmodo relayed an unconfirmed report of maintainers elsewhere still trying [26]. A next-day deadline does not need a ruling. It needs a host who would rather not find out. X and Musk have not commented on the shutdowns [9].
What to watch
- Whether the GitHub repository actually comes down, and how many forks or distro packages survive it.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives40
- Confidence60
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
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.
- [2]
The message now on Nitter's site says the letters arrived on 24 August and demand a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and of the project's repository.
- [3]
XCancel, the most widely shared of the sites running on Nitter, posted that it received a letter from X Corp and is stopping operations until further notice.
- [4]
Notebookcheck reports that the message shown on XCancel says Nitter received a letter from X Corp on August 24 at 8 PM EST asking it to stop operating XCancel, and that the project has suspended the service while it looks into its legal options.
- [5]
The letter accuses Nitter of the unlawful use and circumvention of X's API and associated data, and X says it holds evidence that Nitter scraped its data and reached X accounts and session tokens in breach of its rules.
- [6]
X's lawyers cite the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and the Lanham Act, the federal trademark statute, and add that the list is not exhaustive.
- [7]
Nitter's creator, who goes by the handle Zedeus, says he is seeking legal advice and will not comment on the specifics for now.
- [8]
X gave Nitter until 5pm Eastern on 25 August to shut down, according to TechCrunch's Sarah Perez, who read one of the letters.
- [9]
Musk and X have not commented publicly on the shutdowns.
- [10]
Nitter fetched public posts and stripped out the ads, tracking cookies and JavaScript, giving readers a clean page without an account or the app.
- [11]
Nitter had no home feed, no infinite scrolling and no notifications, and nobody could post because there was no way to log in.
- [12]
In February 2024 X closed several of the methods Nitter used to reach posts, including a guest account feature, and the flagship instance stopped working; hosts then had to attach their instances to a real X account, and the service relaunched in 2025.
- [13]
This time X is using lawyers rather than technical restrictions.
- [14]
A version of the takedown notice sits on the project's GitHub page, where the code has lived since 2019.
- [15]
The developer told TechCrunch by email that other Nitter instances had received similar letters.
- [16]
Siladitya Ray reported for Forbes that nearly all the popular Nitter instances were down by Wednesday morning, with one exception hosted in Singapore.
- [17]
Forums and communities that ban direct links to X leaned on Nitter heavily and allowed Nitter and XCancel links instead, which let people read a post without visiting X.
- [18]
The letter leans on Texas state law and a US federal trademark statute, neither of which reaches a server in the European Union, and an operator hosting an instance in Europe does not obviously fall under either.
- [19]
The Digital Services Act requires very large platforms to give vetted researchers access.
- [20]
A US court in July dismissed Google's scraping claim against SerpApi, in a case about who may collect data from a platform that built itself by collecting data.
- [21]
TechCrunch notes that Meta has taken numerous scrapers to court, and that most large social networks now restrict third-party readers, which pushes people into the official app where the platform can track them and serve personalised ads.
- [22]
Nitter's developer thanked everyone who used, hosted, packaged, donated and contributed to the project over the past seven years.
- [23]
The compliance window was roughly 21 hours: from the letter's arrival at 8 PM EST on 24 August to the 5pm Eastern deadline on 25 August.
- [24]
The two published descriptions of the letter differ in scope: one is a demand to stop operating XCancel, the other a permanent takedown of all Nitter instances and of the repository.
- [25]
The conduct the letter cites, reaching X accounts and session tokens, is the arrangement X's own February 2024 change forced on instance hosts, who then had to attach their instances to a real X account.
- [26]
Mike Pearl noted at Gizmodo that a Reddit user reported some maintainers still trying to keep other instances running, and suggested operators outside the United States may be harder to reach with an American cease-and-desist; neither claim has been confirmed by the maintainers.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- notebookcheck.netXCancel gets taken down as X Corp sends cease-and-desist letter to Nitter - Notebookcheck News
1 article · August 25, 2026
- thenextweb.comNitter is offline after seven years, shut down by cease-and-desist letters
1 article · August 26, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- EU Digital Regulation
- Web scraping law
- Platform API access
- Alternative front ends
Entities
- Elon Musk
- Digital Services Act
- TechCrunch
- GitHub
- Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act
- X