No login required, no ads, and no tracking cookies — that's the whole reason Nitter existed. This open-source platform let users bypass X's official website and app to read public posts directly, which also gave rise to similar services like XCancel, offering the same kind of indirect access. Now both services have gone dark.
The timeline goes back to last August, when X sent Nitter a cease-and-desist notice, accusing it of "illegally using and circumventing X's API, as well as unauthorized access to related data." After receiving the notice, both Nitter and XCancel briefly went offline, but both were back up and running by early September.
The good times didn't last, though. Nitter's GitHub source code repository was archived and set to read-only on September 11, effectively signaling that the project had ground to a halt. The very next day, XCancel posted a statement on its own site announcing a service suspension. The statement only cited "new developments in legal proceedings" as the reason for the shutdown, adding that it was "unable to share further details."
Judging by the wording of these two announcements, things seem to have gotten more complicated than the cease-and-desist notice back in August — which at least spelled out a specific accusation (unauthorized scraping of platform data). This time, all that's left is a vague reference to "new developments." Whether Nitter and XCancel can weather this round of legal action and come back online, or whether this marks a permanent shutdown, remains unconfirmed for now.
