Nitter, the open-source, ad-free, tracker-free frontend that let people read public X posts without an account, is in trouble. The dev has just posted a new update on nitter.net.
What happened:
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On Aug 24, 2026, X Corp sent cease-and-desist letters demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project’s repository. A second letter with the same demands and legal threats followed on Sept 8.
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Press reports say the letters cite the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and the Lanham Act, and also went to other public instances, not just nitter.net.
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nitter.net went offline, and the GitHub repo was archived for a while.
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On Sept 7, the dev said the project would continue with legal representation in place. In the Oct 10 update he says that was based on assurances that “have since turned out to be untrue,” and apologizes for the misleading info.
Where things stand: Nitter currently has no legal counsel. The dev (zedeus) is asking for funding and legal help from lawyers, organizations, or anyone who can help. Donations go to legal costs first, and whatever isn’t needed goes to development of Nitter or its successor.
If you’re a lawyer, work at a digital-rights org, or know someone who is, contact info and donation links are on the page: https://nitter.net/
Seven years of a free, privacy-respecting project, and the response is lawyers. Signal boost if you can.
Keep in mind the Nitter developers are associated with Poast, despite attempts to scrub this.
a website that has become a haven for racist, antisemitic and misogynist posting also has close ties to Truth Social, the social media site founded by former President Donald Trump, according to a report published Thursday
Can you provide any proof for your claims about the ties?
Its right there in the linked commit bruh
For legal inquiries and DMCA requests, contact [email protected]
I meant:
a website that has become a haven for racist, antisemitic and misogynist posting also has close ties to Truth Social, the social media site founded by former President Donald Trump, according to a report published Thursday
Thank you for this. I hadn’t heard of Poast but this is enough to stop me from donating.
How is that link pointing to any evidence of a link between Nitter and Poast
I understand the desire for getting the info off Nazi Twitter but i cannot support anything that’s gonna perpetuate the use of nazi Twitter.
Just walk away from it folks. Let it die.
Tbh, i would prefer if people would just stop using Fascist Central at all, regardless of frontend. I agree that there should be some way to extract important information from there to make it available to privacy minded people, but in the end it is still traffic going there.
That can only occur if people hit datacenters.
Zelenskyy is pulling more weight than Americant.
On Sept 7, the dev said the project would continue with legal representation in place. In the Oct 10 update he says that was based on assurances that “have since turned out to be untrue,” and apologizes for the misleading info.
Did someone scam him?
Law firm probably tentatively said yes they’d represent him, and then backed out once they saw all the details.
Could be any number of things:
- A law firm might have offered to give legal advice for what to do in response to the cease and desist, but won’t agree to represent them in a lawsuit (at least at rates that Nitter can afford).
- A law firm might have given legal advice about one particular issue, but it didn’t comprehensively cover all the legal issues raised by the cease and desist (maybe they gave a legal opinion on the federal law issue but not the Texas law issue).
- A law firm may have agreed to represent them for a particular price but there was a misunderstanding about how to read the pricing sheet and Nitter can’t actually afford to retain that firm.
- Someone may have lied about being a licensed lawyer and law firm.
- A law firm may have given advice and then rescinded that advice after the second cease and desist letter.
- Law firm may have given advice based on erroneous understanding of the facts, and either backed out of representation or modified its advice upon learning the new facts.
This is bigger than a one man fight. Between this and wanting to rewrite nitter in golang instead of nim, I think the future of nitter is sadly quite grim.
That’s bold.
No, it’s not, but this is italics.
;-)
Hung jury is gonna be hard to beat for Elon
