Nitter and XCancel shut down again after X's legal actions
Popular privacy-friendly services Nitter and XCancel have officially shut down following legal threats from X regarding data scraping and rule violations.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- Nitter and XCancel have officially shut down following legal threats from X.
- X accused Nitter of scraping platform data and unauthorized session token access.
- The services briefly returned in early September before permanently going offline.
Popular privacy-friendly alternatives for viewing posts on X, known as Nitter and XCancel, have officially shut down for good following legal actions initiated by the social network last month.
The crackdown stemmed from X's accusations that Nitter had scraped platform data to access user accounts and session tokens, which directly violated the network's established rules and terms of service.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
Despite an initial defiant statement on Nitter's GitHub page stating the project would continue based on legal advice, and a brief period in early September when both services came back online, circumstances have since forced a permanent shutdown.
The permanent closure of Nitter and XCancel highlights X's rigorous enforcement to protect its advertising revenue and user data ecosystem. By cutting off alternative viewing methods, the company ensures that all traffic is channeled through official apps where impressions can be properly monetized, echoing its historical deprecation of beloved third-party clients like Twitterrific and Tweetbot.
Nitter previously functioned by fetching public X posts while stripping away advertisements, tracking cookies, and JavaScript, offering users a clean and clutter-free reading experience without requiring an account or the official mobile application.
However, this bypassed X's monetization efforts, making the workaround unsustainable. For passive users and lurkers, the demise of these services is a major disappointment, as they previously offered a way to monitor platform events without engaging or contributing to X's official user metrics.
Representatives for Nitter did not respond to requests for comment regarding the permanent shutdown.
Source: TechCrunch
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