Nitter archived and XCancel suspended after X legal action
Nitter and XCancel halt public access to X posts
Nitter, the open-source project that enabled users to read X posts without signing in, has been archived on GitHub, while XCancel has suspended its service. The moves follow a cease-and-desist letter from X alleging unlawful use and circumvention of its API and associated data.
Nitter’s GitHub repository was placed into read-only archived status on Friday, September 11, meaning it can no longer be modified or updated. XCancel shut down on Monday and posted that, because of a new development in the ongoing legal proceedings, it was required to suspend the service again until further notice.
The two services had briefly returned in early September after a short interruption. Nitter had said on GitHub that, following legal advice, the project would continue and that further details would follow. The subsequent archive and XCancel suspension indicate that position has changed.
Why X objected to the services
X told Nitter that the project had scraped social-network data to access accounts and session tokens, in breach of its rules. Nitter was used to support XCancel and other viewing services that offered a route to public posts outside X’s own website and application.
Technically, Nitter fetched public X posts and stripped out advertising, tracking cookies and JavaScript. That gave readers a less cluttered view of posts without an account. For X, however, such access does not provide the advertising-supported views it seeks to monetize.
The dispute follows earlier restrictions on third-party access to Twitter content, which had already ended access for applications including Twitterific and Tweetbot. In 2024, Nitter’s main instance, Nitter.net, also went offline temporarily after X introduced new API restrictions. Operators who wished to host a Nitter instance then needed to connect it to a genuine X account.
Implications for teams that monitor social platforms
The closures remove an option for people who wanted to observe activity on X without participating through the platform or contributing to its user figures. They also show that tools dependent on unofficial platform access can be affected quickly by API rules and legal enforcement.
Businesses using social content for monitoring, research or communications should identify any workflows that rely on Nitter-derived services, confirm their access routes, and plan around approved platform access where continuity is required.