X Forces Shutdown of Open-Source Reader Nitter

The project’s primary domain, Nitter.net, went offline following the August 24 demand, which required a total takedown of all instances and the associated repository by the following afternoon. Zedeus, the developer behind the tool, confirmed that multiple Nitter instances received identical legal threats. The creator has halted development while seeking counsel, signaling a definitive end to the project's current iteration.

X’s legal team contends that Nitter violated the Texas Harmful Access by Computer Act and the Lanham Act by scraping data and circumventing official API restrictions. The platform alleges that Nitter accessed session tokens and user accounts, a practice X claims violates its governing rules. This move aligns with a broader industry trend where major social networks aggressively target third-party readers to funnel users into official applications, where tracking and personalized advertising are mandatory.

For many, Nitter served as a privacy-focused alternative for browsing content without creating an account or engaging with the native app’s ecosystem. With the project’s infrastructure dismantled, users who relied on these instances now face the choice of abandoning their access or complying with X’s requirement to log in directly.