Nitter and XCancel are dead (again) after X’s latest legal actions
Privacy-focused services Nitter and XCancel have officially shut down following legal pressure from X. The platform successfully enforced its API restrictions to prevent third-party access to its data.
Why it matters
This marks a significant victory for X in its effort to control data monetization and user access, further limiting alternative ways to consume social media content.
After X threatened legal action last month, Nitter and XCancel, privacy-friendly services for viewing X posts, appear to be officially dead — for real this time.
Nitter, an open-source project that let people read X posts without logging in, had been used to power a number of services, like XCancel and others . But last month, X sent Nitter a cease-and-desist letter over its alleged “unlawful use and circumvention” of X’s API and associated data.
Essentially, X said that 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,” and promised more details would come soon. In early September, both Nitter and XCancel were up and running again after a short pause.
Unfortunately, things have since changed.
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