X Demands Shutdown of Nitter — the Open-Source Project for Reading Posts Without an Account

Nitter, the open-source project that let people read posts on X without signing up, installing an app or wading through intrusive ads, has received a formal cease-and-desist from X Corp. demanding that it shut down entirely. This was announced in a brief notice on the project's site.

Nitter worked simply: it pulled public posts from X, stripped out the ads, tracking cookies and JavaScript, and served the user a clean, easy-to-read version. A number of third-party sites were built on top of it, including XCancel.

Not the First Attempt

This is not X's first move against the project. In 2024 the flagship Nitter.net instance went temporarily offline after X introduced new API restrictions. At the time, anyone wanting to run their own instance had to tie it to a real X account. Even so, development resumed and the instances came back to life.

This time X is resorting to legal means. According to the project's creator, who goes by the handle Zedeus, other instances received similar letters. Nitter.net itself is now offline and development is on hold — the author is seeking legal counsel and is declining to comment on the substance. In a farewell message he thanked everyone who over seven years had used, hosted, packaged, donated to and contributed to Nitter.

The Substance of the Claims

In a letter reviewed by TechCrunch, X accuses Nitter of the “unlawful use and circumvention of the X API and associated data.” The company claims it has evidence of data scraping, as well as of access to accounts and session tokens in violation of the service's rules. X's lawyers cite a range of state and federal laws, including the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and the Lanham Act. The deadline to cease operations was set extremely tight — 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on August 25.

X is not alone here: Meta has repeatedly sued scrapers, and most major social networks today restrict third-party readers, forcing users to log in through the official app — where they can be conveniently tracked and shown personalized ads.

For those who preferred to quietly read other people's posts without setting up an account, the news is disheartening. They now have two options: give up the habit or — which, by all appearances, is exactly what X is counting on — go ahead and register and log in.

Source: TechCrunch