Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices • Hacker News Board

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#281

Post by orphereus » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

dokyun wrote: post #146

mmooss wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "free speech" platforms like X are "technically" closed. Musk boots off and/or limits distribution of people he disagrees with. I can't fathom how you think that's 'free speech' - it's the opposite. > Federated platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky are "culturally" closed I've heard that - what is your experience? Downvotes and exclusion? Are there more 'open' servers?

> I've heard that - what is your experience? Downvotes and exclusion? Are there more 'open' servers? Fediverse has plenty of servers which are "free speech" adjacent, which most Mastodon servers close off since its easier for them to police what their users can see than let them do it themselves. The vast majority of them do not run the Mastodon software, and feel far more "wild west" with all the shitposters. But if…

Which servers are these fun ones? I would like to explore a bit.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#282

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

Ugvx wrote: post #257

The only reason why I needed nitter to access x is due to organizations still using it as their main communication solution to their customers. Even my local council uses it. I would like this to be the final push for people to get off x but I suspect its going g to stay and I guess I don't get to see news from my local council anymore.

Can't you submit written/oral comments on this? Write letters to your local paper etc. You might need to be That Guy for a few months but sooner or later you're going to connect with other people who feel the same way.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#283

Post by chews » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

for all of elon's pratting on about crypto and open protocols for x to be a single reader application is insane. Wait the problem is AI scraping??!!? and yet Grok is hoovering the planet... what's good for me isn't good for you.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#284

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:38 PM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #201

bambax wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should respond with a poop emoji, which is what Musk sends to people he doesn't care about.

Musk can afford to be childish about legal challenges because the outcome doesn't really matter to him.

You're 100% correct, but but it's exactly the sort of thing that would cause him to go on a tear and say something admissible.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#285

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:38 PM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #109

NoboruWataya wrote: post #6

What is the main use case for X these days? Is it still as popular as it used to be? Clearly the exodus that happened when Musk took it over didn't kill it but I do seem to see fewer links to it than I used to. Whenever I do see it linked on here it seems to be because one of the big tech CEOs has said something on it.

In a UK context, journalists are on there because politicians are on there... and politicians are on there because journalists are on there. It's politicians that need to pull the plug - if they left en masse the journalists would go where they went, even if they stayed on X too - but nobody has the balls to do it. (Aside from one politician who for all practical purposes seems to do absolutely nothing: https://www.b…

[deleted]

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#286

Post by ball_of_lint » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

bbg2401 wrote: post #5

> You've gotta be kidding me. Unfortunately everyone still uses the Nazi app so this is actually a big problem. If the commenter truly believes it’s a Nazi app, why are they the slightest bit upset to lose access to any version of it? It’s astonishingly easy to not use toxic social media platforms.

When fighting Nazis, it's quite valuable to be able to hear what they're saying and know where they're going.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#287

Post by zahlman » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #130

I’ve been writing an HN clone that’s literally a clone. It copies all front page posts and comments. I just wanted to say publicly that dang is awesome. Instead of shutting down the idea, he’s been actively helping the project by answering periodic emails and… well, not shutting it down. Not sure what to do with it yet. Maybe I could let users have custom filtering rules. But the point is, companies should support co…

I don't mean to discourage you, and it's great that you've gotten that support; but I don't understand what purpose this serves. I had understood that Nitter exists exactly because of the forces that would make X leadership tend not to like its existence. HN is already not trying to sell things or make the interface obnoxious for logged-out users, and it makes very responsible use of JavaScript; what is there to filter out?

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#288

Post by ranger_danger » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:40 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #115

raphman wrote: post #3

Not much detail so far. > We have received cease and desist letters. Awaiting legal advice at the moment, but for now expect all nitter instances to remain down for the foreseeable future. [for all those who - like me - first check the comments before clicking on the link]

Are they expecting legal advice to take a long tine?! It's fairly reasonable to check with a lawyer first, before damaging yourself by complying. The legal system gets this concept. Otherwise random, unwarranted desist orders from your enemies could break you. Anyone can send an request. Weird.

Getting legal advice can absolutely take a long time, and the first thing they'll probably tell most people in this situation is "turn it off for now until we can do more research and collect money from you."

However, C&D's don't really carry any legal weight in the US to my knowledge... but I don't see any harm in complying ahead of time just to be safe. The only "damage" I can see is just by nature of the service being down temporarily.

If there is even a possibility that a court may find the service violating a law, I think the legal advisor would likely say to just leave the service down unless you have many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars or more to fight it... you can most likely avoid the entire lawsuit altogether just by complying with the C&D. And this kind of suit is one that can easily ruin your company or even personal life... so avoiding it seems smart.

> Anyone can send an request.

As for emails, I think BIMI has solved this for some time now, at least for large companies.

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#289

Post by qzx_pierri » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:41 PM UTC

jackb4040 wrote: post #114

erulabs wrote: post #53

The open web is dead. The open web remains dead. And we have killed it. I'm actually much less anti-Musk than the average HN commentator but it should be universally agreed here that a small handful of mega-corp websites dominating the majority of content on the web is a bad thing . Nitter was hardly a solution. Federated platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky are "culturally" closed, and "free speech" platforms like X…

If we reflect on the debate from years ago about whether to nationalize Twitter, all the downsides we were warned about have come true. They censor / promote whoever the state wants anyways, the CEOs was literally in the cabinet for a time, but now they also have to enshittify and degrade the experience for the benefit of an also-ran AI lab.

All of the downsides you listed started with Jack Dorsey, and were significantly improved once Musk took over. X/Twitter still has its issues, though.

I’d tell you to check out the “Twitter Files”, but it seems Wikipedia has been completely compromised. And I’m hesitant to recommend you read about it on Grokipedia (you’ll assume there is major bias), but it does seem to be the most accurate retelling of the scandal that I can find online. Here are both though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files https://grokipedia.com/page/Twitter_Files Censorship-wise… Twitter was worse than Reddit at its peak (before being bought).

Re: Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

#290

Post by cxr » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:44 PM UTC

bio-s wrote: post #228

On Monday 24th August at 8PM EST, we received at letter from X Corp. asking to cease and desist the service XCancel. The service XCancel is stopped until further notice. We are seeking legal advice and won't share more details for now. Thank you for the trust you have put in these two years of XCancel.

Have you considered reaching out to users who actually create and own the material published on Twitter to work out a deal whereby xcancel.com would be permitted to publish their posts (regardless of what the cease and desist says)?