Twitter workaround worked around again: X's lawyers cancel XCancel again

Nitter and XCancel, a pair of social media services which let you view posts on X without an X account, are down again after the latest round of legal wrangling. While the XCancel site now displays the message "Unfortunately, due to a new development in the ongoing legal proceedings, we are required to suspend this service again until further notice," Nitter's site is offline, and the code repository was archived on September 11, 2026. Things were not looking good in August for the services, which allowed a user to view posts on X (formerly Twitter) without an account or having to endure adverts and accept trackers. X's lawyers fired off a cease-and-desist letter, and the services acquiesced, going offline while the implications were digested. A few weeks later, the services were back up and running. At the time, zedeus, Nitter's maintainer, wrote, "an announcement will be made within a week, once we're able to reveal more information." Alas, that "more information" appears to be another cessation. XCancel wrote simply, "We can't share more details," and added a link to X for users keen for content. It is difficult to say for sure if and when the services might be back, or if users have headed elsewhere for their microblogging fix. Users not wishing to sign up for an X account have plenty of alternatives – Mastodon and Bluesky, for example. X has considerable form when it comes to rolling out the lawyers to fend off perceived threats or alleged abuses of its services, and is perfectly within its rights to do so. In the case of Nitter (and XCancel, which uses the project), the concern likely centered on how posts were viewed without an account, JavaScript, or ads. X also attempted to defend the Twitter and blue bird trademark and branding in a spat with tweet.app. It kept hold of Twitter (despite ditching the name after Musk's takeover), but tweet.app snapped up the word 'tweet' and the bird imagery. That's for the time being, at least. ®