Nitter Faces X Corp. Legal Threats Without Counsel, Seeks Funding and Legal Help
Nitter: Update Oct 10th seeking funding and legal help
X Corp. sent cease and desist letters on August 24 and September 8, 2026, demanding Nitter's permanent takedown. The project's September 7 update claimed legal representation was in place, but that turned out to be untrue. Nitter now has no legal counsel. Creator zedeus is seeking funding and legal help to fight for the project's future, with donations covering legal costs first.
Nitter currently has no legal counsel. I'm seeking funding and legal help to fight for the future of Nitter.
- apgwoz
I don’t use Twitter, but if I did, I would certainly want to archive the content of my timeline so I could refer back to it for journalistic reasons, perhaps, via a browser extension? No reason to lock down my “ownership” here, because it’d only be public posts. There are obvious fair use reasons for when I want to quote someone when I do acts of journalism. I’d even be willing to share my archive with anyone else, and advertise the tweet_ids I have in case another journalist wanted them. Sort of like… I dunno, napster? That’d be great.
- medler
This is very clearly an attempt by X to use the legal system to harass people doing perfectly legal things. The chilling effect on speech is the whole point
- petcat
It's impossible to know what this "legal advice" was, but it was always a dubious claim.
The software project itself is probably fine. The legal risk is always going to be with the person that hosts it with the intention of facilitating the unauthorized access of Twitter's website. Seems like that could run afoul of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Those people should seek their own legal advice and not listen to anything this guy says.
- 1ba9115454
Nitter is/was a free, open-source alternative front-end for X (formerly Twitter) that lets users view public posts without an account, ads, or tracking scripts.
- bhouston
I don’t think nitter can run legally. It would be like having a proxy for nytimes or cnn. I think its (or systems like it) only possible future is to acknowledge it doesn’t have a legal future.
- hrideshmg
I am quite surprised by the number of comments critical of Nitter.
I personally don't use it but frontends like these are very important in today's day and age.
As sad as it is, the majority of online discourse nowadays happens on platforms whose algorithms and interfaces are controlled by corporations.
A project like Nitter probably can't run legally, and that's okay. Custom mobile clients for Reddit still work after they banned it, life finds a way. I'm all for funding these projects though because at the end of the day, someone has to build it.
- erelong
What is this, can't EFF or FSF or some related org provide legal aid
And does the access act as a kind of fair use? Not like Nitter is making money from the access to the content
- andsoitis
> seeking funding
What’s the purpose of Nitter?
Elevator pitch if you will?
And where can one read a bio of the creator(s)?