X sends cease and desist letters, Nitter shuts down

X sent cease and desist letters to Nitter and XCancel, and both projects went dark the same day, in a GitHub issue from Nitter's maintainer. GitHub's API already shows the zedeus/nitter repo archived, a project with 13,561 stars. Anyone still reading tweets through a Nitter mirror needs another source.

The maintainer wrote that every instance should stay down for the foreseeable future while they get legal advice. The letters demand permanent takedown of nitter.net and the GitHub repo, plus deletion of all X data. They also demand an end to using the Twitter and X marks, and deletion of stored account credentials and session tokens. Nitter's maintainer has three business days to confirm compliance in writing, under an asserted breach of X's Terms of Service.

XCancel, the other major Nitter-based mirror, also went offline that day.

The credential and session token demand targets the maintainer's own accounts directly. Any tool that read X without paying for API access lost that path the same day the letters went out.

What the GitHub issue doesn't say is whether any instance operator plans to fight the demand instead of complying. Three business days is a short window to decide.