Nitter and XCancel return despite legal threats from X
The bird might be free, but the API is not.
Image by Silas Stein/picture alliance/Getty Images
- Nitter and XCancel are resuming service after a temporary shutdown tied to X’s legal threats.
- X demanded permanent removal of Nitter instances and its repository over alleged API circumvention.
- Nitter lets people read X posts without an account, ads, or trackers, but users cannot interact.
- The GitHub project has returned to active development and gained hundreds of new supporters.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Nitter and XCancel, third-party websites used for browsing tweets on X without an account and for tracking, are resuming service after a temporary suspension following X's cease-and-desist letters.
On September 7th, XCancel came back online, and Nitter plans to resume service shortly.
“Following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue. This instance and others will be back up and running shortly. An announcement will be made within a week, once we're able to reveal more information,” the Nitter website currently reads.
XCancel, which is another instance of Nitter, added a similar note to its subdomain.
The popular websites that let users access tweets without an account shut down on August 24th, 2026, after receiving legal threats from X Corp.
No additional details were provided, and more details will be released on the Nitter project’s GitHub page.
Nitter was created as a free and open source alternative frontend for X, focusing on privacy and performance. The project eliminates trackers, advertisements, and even the need for an account to access tweets. Users can browse profiles, replies, media, and individual posts, but can’t interact with them.
The X‘s cease-and-desist letters demanded the permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project’s repository due to unlawful use and circumvention of X’s Application Programming Interface (API) and associated data.
Nitter’s GitHub project was temporarily archived, but it has now returned to active development, gaining 800 additional stars on top of its previous 13,500. The number of forks jumped from 891 to over 1,300.
It’s not the first time the Nitter project faced termination. In 2024, the lead maintainer, Zedeus, posted that “Nitter is dead” after X removed the guest account feature the project required at the time.
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The Nitter frontend is inspired by Invidious, a free YouTube viewer that bypasses the official YouTube API and scrapes the website for videos and metadata directly. Invidious was also threatened by YouTube in 2023, but the maintainers chose to ignore the cease-and-desist letters, claiming they had never agreed to any of YouTube’s terms of service.
XCancel says it uses Twitter’s unofficial API, which doesn’t require a developer account.
After acquiring the platform, Elon Musk tweeted that the bird was freed and compared Twitter to a common digital town square, which is important to the future of civilizations.