Nitter lives to proxy another day after taking legal advice

The Nitter project will continue "following legal advice," meaning XCancel, a public service built on its open source code, is back online. As of September 7, nitter.net displayed the announcement: "Following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue. This instance and others will be back up and running shortly." XCancel, a public instance built on Nitter, was operational again. Nitter is a free, open source front end for reading posts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter before it was acquired and rebranded by self-described "free speech absolutist" Elon Musk. It requires no X account and, according to the project's repository, offers "zero ads" with "no JavaScript required." However, using Nitter or an instance based on it, such as XCancel, can feel like a game of Whac-A-Mole, with frequent changes required whenever X restricts another means of accessing its data. In January 2024, maintainer zedeus declared the project dead after X disabled the guest accounts on which it relied. Nitter returned at the start of 2025 using account sessions, although the maintainer warned: "Nitter is officially back, but hosting an instance is nowhere near as easy as it used to be." Then, on August 24, X deployed the lawyers and sent cease-and-desist letters demanding the permanent removal of Nitter instances and the project's repository. The repository was archived, instances went offline, and for a few weeks the lights went out. The project now says it will continue, although the main nitter.net instance has yet to resume normal operation. According to zedeus, "an announcement will be made within a week, once we're able to reveal more information." The Register asked X to comment, but have yet to receive a response. Nitter and similar front ends serve users who do not want an X account or the platform's tracking, while still allowing them to read posts from organizations that remain active there. Users cannot publish through Nitter, only read public posts. What legal advice persuaded Nitter to continue, and whether X plans another move against the project, should become clearer when zedeus publishes the promised announcement. (R)