--- title: Nitter will continue after receiving cease and desist... description: X Corp sent cease and desist letters to the Nitter project on August 24, 2026, demanding instances be taken offline and its GitHub repository removed over... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-will-continue-after-receiving-cease-and-desist-letters-from-x-corp-jaihs2dzm twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Nitter will continue after receiving cease and desist letters from X Corp | daily.dev og:description: X Corp sent cease and desist letters to the Nitter project on August 24, 2026, demanding instances be taken offline and its GitHub repository removed over... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-will-continue-after-receiving-cease-and-desist-letters-from-x-corp-jaihs2dzm og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/jaihS2dZm.png og:image:alt: Nitter will continue after receiving cease and desist letters from X Corp og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Nitter will continue after receiving cease and desist letters from X Corp **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 2 min read · 16 upvotes · 5 comments ## Summary X Corp sent cease and desist letters to the Nitter project on August 24, 2026, demanding instances be taken offline and its GitHub repository removed over alleged unlawful scraping and API circumvention. Nitter initially complied, archiving its repo, and its popular fork XCancel also paused. Weeks later, after seeking legal advice, the maintainer updated the README to confirm Nitter will continue, with instances set to return and a fuller announcement pending. The donations section was removed in the same update. This follows a similar 2024 shutdown attempt when X cut Nitter's guest account access, and echoes YouTube's 2023 legal pressure on Invidious, which also survived. ## Content Nitter, the open-source front end for X (formerly Twitter), is coming back. X Corp sent cease-and-desist letters to the project on August 24, 2026, demanding that Nitter instances and its GitHub repository be taken down. The letters accused the project of unlawfully scraping X data and circumventing its API in violation of Texas and federal law. Nitter initially complied — the GitHub repo was archived, instances went offline, and XCancel, a popular fork, also halted operations. A few weeks later, the maintainer reversed course. A README update to the GitHub repository states that, following legal advice, the project will continue. XCancel is also back online. The main nitter.net instance hasn't resumed yet, and a fuller announcement is expected within a week. The donations section (Liberapay, Patreon, Ko-fi, and crypto addresses) was quietly removed in the same update. The maintainer, who goes by zedeus and operates pseudonymously, hasn't detailed what changed legally. Two recent developments may have influenced the decision: a US court dismissed Google's DMCA claims against a web scraping company, and a scraping firm closed a $130 million funding round — both signals that the legal ground around scraping is shifting, or at least less settled than X Corp's letters implied. X Corp hasn't publicly commented or withdrawn its letters, so the underlying situation is unresolved. The legal asymmetry between a well-funded corporation and a pseudonymous open-source maintainer hasn't gone away. This isn't the first time Nitter has survived a shutdown attempt. In 2024, X cut off the guest account feature the project depended on — Nitter worked around it. The Invidious project, which does something similar for YouTube, received a shutdown demand from Google in 2023 and is still running. ## Questions this post answers ### Why did Nitter shut down and then come back online? Nitter initially shut down after X Corp sent cease-and-desist letters on August 24, 2026, accusing it of unlawfully scraping X data and violating Texas and federal law. The GitHub repo was archived and instances went offline. Weeks later, maintainer zedeus reversed course following legal advice, restoring the GitHub repo and the XCancel fork, though the main nitter.net instance had not yet resumed. _Developers relying on open-source scrapers can follow legal and platform risk news like this on daily.dev._ ### What legal developments might have prompted Nitter to resume despite X Corp's cease-and-desist letters? Two recent developments shifted the legal landscape around web scraping: a US court dismissed Google's DMCA claims against a web scraping company, and a scraping firm closed a $130 million funding round. Together these signaled that the legal ground around scraping may be less settled than X Corp's letters implied, though the maintainer has not detailed exactly what changed. _Anyone weighing scraping-related legal risk for a project can track cases like this via daily.dev._ ### How did Nitter previously survive a shutdown attempt by X? In 2024, X cut off the guest account feature that Nitter depended on to function, and the project worked around the change to keep operating. This precedent mirrors how Invidious, a similar YouTube front end, kept running after Google sent it a shutdown demand in 2023. _Teams building on unofficial APIs can watch for workaround patterns like this through daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 2 discussions and 433 comments across lobsters, hackernews (as of 2026-09-13). **TL;DR:** People are glad Nitter is continuing given how much information is siloed on X, but the bulk of the discussion drifts into a long, contentious debate about platform lock-in, decentralization, free speech and moderation rather than staying focused on Nitter itself. **Sentiment:** 25% positive · 30% mixed · 45% skeptical **The case for** - Having an alternative frontend is seen as important given how much crucial/official information is posted exclusively on X. - Nitter is described as a useful adversarial-interoperability tool since it only lets people read posts, not post themselves. - Some see decentralized/federated alternatives (ActivityPub, atproto) as a healthier long-term direction than centralized platforms. **The pushback** - Skeptics doubt Nitter can withstand a well-resourced legal fight, drawing comparisons to how Nintendo has crushed smaller projects legally. - Many argue decentralized alternatives sacrifice usability (search, threading, signup friction) making mass migration unrealistic. - Others contend network effects and 'this is where my friends are' keep people on X regardless of CEO behavior or moderation concerns. - Some argue federated instances just replace one form of censorship/moderation with another, sparking disagreement over what counts as free speech. **By community** - lobsters (mixed): A short thread mostly veers into comparing X's legal tactics to Nintendo's history of aggressive C&Ds, with one comment clarifying the threats actually came from X Corp, not Nintendo. - hackernews (heated): A large, sprawling thread that only briefly touches Nitter itself before erupting into a heated, many-sided debate over platform migration, decentralization, censorship, and whether X still deserves to be called a free-speech platform. **Hottest debate:** Whether moving away from X to federated/decentralized platforms is actually feasible or desirable, and whether blocking certain instances/content on those platforms constitutes censorship. **Open questions** - How will Nitter's maintainers actually defend against further legal action given limited resources compared to a well-funded company? - What would it take to get millions of users to migrate off X to alternative platforms? - Should there be regulatory mandates forcing large platforms to provide open APIs or interoperability? **Highlights** > The CEO's antics, no matter how disturbing, simply aren't most people's top concern when making a product choice. This may seem crazy to the hyper-political crowd but most people really do not see themselves as being part of this war where every single decision they make in their lives has to prioritize their side. When choosing a social network, probably the top priority for most people is where the people they want to talk to are. If CEO antics were the thing that mattered, I would certainly choose Bluesky over X. But the reality is the tech community -- at least, the part of it I want to interact with -- is mostly on X. Many of us tried to switch to Bluesky for a bit but ironically got pushed back to X due to Bluesky culture being hostile to tech and especially hostile to AI. I'd post the same non-political tech thing on X and Bluesky and get lots of interesting feedback on X while getting screamed at on Bluesky, so I stopped posting on Bluesky. Would love for this to change but it's a hard problem. > — [kentonv on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590010) > The platform is the people, not the tech. > — [deadbabe on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590190) > We're talking about the "free-speech platform" that bans words like "cis" and "cisgender"? https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/14/on-elons-whim-x-now-treats... The platform that randomly banned journalists for using Substack? https://newrepublic.com/post/179067/twitter-files-matt-taibb... The same platform that banned left-wing journalists because they were criticizing Musk? https://mashable.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-journalists-f... I don't know, it sounds like there's some very good reasons to move away from a centralized platform where the owner can randomly decide he doesn't like you and ban you. > — [Deukhoofd on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49590047) > > Nintendo has absolutely destroyed people legally. Nitter seems to be counting on massive donations (employable in opposition to Nintendo) or an unlikely case (weak law involved? Not likely for Nintendo) Nitter have received legal threats from X Corporation, not from Nintendo > — [davmac on lobsters · 1 points](https://lobste.rs/s/jsxzwl/following_legal_advice_nitter_project#c_mar7tv) > Nitter doesn't let you post to X. It only lets you read when someone else posted something on X and then it hits a place like Hacker News. It's an adversarial interoperability tool. > — [mitxela on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49592238) **Source threads** - [lobsters](https://lobste.rs/s/jsxzwl/following_legal_advice_nitter_project) · 35 points · 10 comments - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49588988) · 325 points · 423 comments ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@wxtx** · 5 upvotes > That’s excellent news. Long live Nitter, X go to hell. **@akkitto** · 2 upvotes > Quick! Everybody archive the Nitter repositories and all public information, before it's gone. **@zildeus** · 0 upvotes >  **@codechini** · 0 upvotes > I think it jas become a general trend that big AI corp who scrap public as well as private(as much as possible) **data** are pointing finger on others whomsoever it may be OS othe companies, etc. And that is not right. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Nitter and XCancel are dead \(again\) after X’s latest legal actions](https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-and-xcancel-are-dead-again-after-x-s-latest-legal-actions-nk1anj1q4) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Thank you, AI¹](https://daily.dev/posts/thank-you-ai--l8ycdt7qf) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Payment biz pulls plug on open source charity after KYC spat](https://daily.dev/posts/payment-biz-pulls-plug-on-open-source-charity-after-kyc-spat-1mdgsklcs) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy), [#legal](https://daily.dev/tags/legal) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-will-continue-after-receiving-cease-and-desist-letters-from-x-corp-jaihs2dzm) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Nitter will continue after receiving cease and desist letters from X Corp","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-will-continue-after-receiving-cease-and-desist-letters-from-x-corp-jaihs2dzm","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-will-continue-after-receiving-cease-and-desist-letters-from-x-corp-jaihs2dzm"},"datePublished":"2026-09-07T15:15:42.209Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T19:56:26.740Z","description":"X Corp sent cease and desist letters to the Nitter project on August 24, 2026, demanding instances be taken offline and its GitHub repository removed over...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a03b6dc7eff7d201483953a55e228ec1?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a03b6dc7eff7d201483953a55e228ec1?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Collections","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Collections","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--fk_6ycEi--/f_auto,q_auto/v1780996001/logos/collections?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},"commentCount":5,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-will-continue-after-receiving-cease-and-desist-letters-from-x-corp-jaihs2dzm","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":16},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}],"keywords":"open-source,privacy,legal","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Collections","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/collections"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Nitter will continue after receiving cease and desist letters from X Corp"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-will-continue-after-receiving-cease-and-desist-letters-from-x-corp-jaihs2dzm","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"That’s excellent news. Long live Nitter, X go to hell.","datePublished":"2026-09-07T16:18:31.541Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/jaihS2dZm#c-pUjJ92Pss","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"WojtekXTX","url":"https://daily.dev/wxtx","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--slav3kNg--/f_auto/v1788199427/avatars/avatar_y6NTB6llakYmLSelD0bZh?_a=BAMAMicg0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"Quick! Everybody archive the Nitter repositories and all public information, before it’s gone.","datePublished":"2026-09-07T22:03:17.904Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/jaihS2dZm#c-UwvCP5f5e","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel","url":"https://daily.dev/akkitto","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--FtwJqX4c--/f_auto/v1754900041/avatars/avatar_29TCpY2hJR72V3BlxPXzX?_a=BAMClqZW0"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"","datePublished":"2026-09-08T13:39:40.417Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/jaihS2dZm#c-M3EccgOhU","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"ZilDeus","url":"https://daily.dev/zildeus","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/131702027?v=4"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I think it jas become a general trend that big AI corp who scrap public as well as private(as much as possible) data are pointing finger on others whomsoever it may be OS othe companies, etc. And that is not right.","datePublished":"2026-09-09T03:18:23.553Z","dateModified":"2026-09-09T03:19:02.866Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/jaihS2dZm#c-Mw2pwQ8FI","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Chinmay","url":"https://daily.dev/codechini","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocIH2WsF8sgGFUn2cqwWEP7lShdb0sJtMm77hIQNvoUXN83IWMIo=s96-c"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/nitter-will-continue-after-receiving-cease-and-desist-letters-from-x-corp-jaihs2dzm#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why did Nitter shut down and then come back online?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Nitter initially shut down after X Corp sent cease-and-desist letters on August 24, 2026, accusing it of unlawfully scraping X data and violating Texas and federal law. The GitHub repo was archived and instances went offline. Weeks later, maintainer zedeus reversed course following legal advice, restoring the GitHub repo and the XCancel fork, though the main nitter.net instance had not yet resumed. Developers relying on open-source scrapers can follow legal and platform risk news like this on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What legal developments might have prompted Nitter to resume despite X Corp's cease-and-desist letters?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Two recent developments shifted the legal landscape around web scraping: a US court dismissed Google's DMCA claims against a web scraping company, and a scraping firm closed a $130 million funding round. Together these signaled that the legal ground around scraping may be less settled than X Corp's letters implied, though the maintainer has not detailed exactly what changed. 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