X sends cease-and-desist letters to open-source project Nitter over alleged scraping
X Corp has sent cease-and-desist letters to Nitter, an open-source tool that let people read X posts without an account, demanding it shut down permanently. The flagship Nitter.net instance is now offline while its creator seeks legal advice.
Nitter, an open-source project that let people read public X posts without logging in or even opening the X app, has received cease-and-desist letters from X Corp demanding a permanent shutdown. The news was shared through a brief message posted on the project's website.
Nitter worked by fetching public X posts and stripping out ads, tracking cookies and JavaScript, offering a clean way to browse posts without an account. The underlying service also powered other sites, including XCancel, which let people view X content directly.
This is not X's first attempt to take Nitter down. In 2024, the flagship instance, Nitter.net, went offline temporarily after X introduced new API restrictions, forcing anyone hosting an instance to connect it to a real X account. Despite that, development resumed and instances came back online.
This time, X is pursuing legal means. The project's creator, who goes by the handle Zedeus, told TechCrunch that other Nitter instances received similar letters. According to the message posted on Nitter's site, X Corp sent cease-and-desist letters on August 24, 2026, demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project's code repository. Nitter.net is currently offline while the creator seeks legal advice, and the message thanked everyone who used, hosted, packaged, donated to and contributed to the project over its seven years.
The letter, which TechCrunch has reviewed, accuses Nitter of unlawfully using and circumventing X's API, claiming X has evidence the project scraped data and accessed accounts and session tokens without authorization. X's lawyers cited violations of several U.S. state and federal laws, including the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and the Lanham Act. Nitter was given until 5 p.m. EST on August 25 to shut down.
X is not alone in cracking down on third-party scrapers — Meta has also taken legal action against similar tools, as major social networks increasingly push users toward official apps where they can be tracked and shown ads.
