Nitter, an open supply challenge that allowed folks to learn X posts with out logging into and even opening the X app, has acquired cease-and-desist letters from X demanding that it shut down. The information was shared by way of a short message posted to the challenge’s web site, and follows X’s earlier makes an attempt to knock Nitter offline by technical means.
The service additionally powers a lot of different websites, together with XCancel, that enable folks to view X posts straight.
This isn’t X’s first try to shut down Nitter. In 2024, Nitter’s flagship occasion, Nitter.internet, went dark temporarily after X rolled out new API restrictions. Nitter labored by fetching public X posts after which stripping out the adverts, monitoring cookies, and JavaScript, giving folks a clear, clutter-free solution to learn posts with out an account or the app.
After that crackdown, those that wished to host a Nitter occasion needed to join it to an actual X account, in response to the project’s GitHub page. Regardless of the restrictions, improvement picked again up and Nitter cases got here again on-line.
This time, X is working to close down Nitter and its cases by way of authorized means. Nitter’s web site states that the Nitter.internet challenge is offline whereas its creator seeks authorized recommendation after receiving a cease-and-desist letter. That creator, a developer who goes by the deal with Zedeus, instructed TechCrunch by e-mail that different Nitter cases acquired comparable letters.
On Nitter’s web site, the message presently reads:
“On 24 August 2026 stop and desist letters have been despatched by X Corp. demanding a everlasting takedown of Nitter cases and the challenge’s repository.
nitter.internet is offline and improvement has stopped in the intervening time. I’m looking for authorized recommendation and received’t be commenting additional on the specifics for now.
Thanks to everybody who used, hosted, packaged, donated and contributed to Nitter over the previous seven years.”
The letter from X, which TechCrunch has considered, accuses Nitter of an “illegal use and circumvention of X’s Utility Programming Interface (API) and related knowledge,” by means of its service, saying that X has proof that Nitter scraped X knowledge and accessed X accounts and session tokens in violation of X’s guidelines.
Attorneys for X stated the actions are in violation of “varied state and federal legal guidelines, together with, however not restricted to, the Texas Dangerous Entry by Laptop Act (§ 143.001 and § 33.02) and the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 1114, 1125).” The letter gave Nitter till 5 p.m. EST on August 25 to close down.
X is hardly alone in policing alleged scrapers. Meta has taken numerous scrapers to courtroom, and most bigger social networks as we speak limit using third-party readers, forcing customers to log in and entry the location’s content material by means of the official app, the place they are often tracked and proven personalised adverts.
It’s an unlucky improvement for lurkers, provided that Nitter and its cases provided a useful solution to sustain with sure folks’s posts on X with out an account. Now these folks will both want to surrender that entry or, as X possible hopes, create an account and log in.
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