Nitter and XCancel Shut Down After X Legal Threats

X sent a cease-and-desist letter to Nitter in August, accusing the open-source platform of “unlawful use and circumvention of X’s Application Programming Interface (API) and associated data.” The letter claimed the services scraped the social platform’s data in violation of X’s rules. Nitter and XCancel briefly shut down after receiving the cease-and-desist, but returned earlier in September.

Over the past few days, both have gone dark again. Nitter’s GitHub repository was archived and moved into read-only mode on September 11. Yesterday, XCancel posted a statement on its site saying its service was suspended. The statement cited “a new development in the ongoing legal proceedings” and added, “We can’t share more details.” XCancel did not provide further information.

Nitter was an open-source platform that let people read X posts without being logged into X or having an X account. It also powered other services offering similar indirect access to X posts, including XCancel. Those services provided a more private way to view X posts without ads or tracking cookies, and allowed people to follow information shared on X without adding to the user counts of the Elon Musk-owned service.

It remains unclear whether Nitter and XCancel can fend off the legal action or whether the suspensions will become permanent shutdowns. Users of the services will have to wait for more information from the operators or from the legal proceedings.