15 ms·

XCancel service is suspended until further notice

749 points by gaganyaan 22d ago

tylerchilds 21d ago
Remember when twitter was “the public sphere” Lulz
gaganyaan 22d ago
XCancel service is suspended. Unfortunately, due to a new development in the ongoing legal proceedings, we are required to suspend this service again until further notice. We can't share more details. You can find the content you were looking for on the original website: Continue to X Thank you for your understanding. And the trust you have put into the XCancel project.
- Lord-Jobo 22d ago
  Classic “we must show good faith and good will before the judicial system by keeping our stuff offline, until proceedings are complete” “Does the other side need to show any good faith?” “No, in fact the judge is more likely to side either then the more angry and aggressive they are” “….great”
cube00 22d ago
The fact that so many large companies are still on X is so wrong.
- melodyogonna 22d ago
  Why?
  - bigyabai 21d ago
    Because I want to identify with luxury brands, celebrities and lifestyle corporations, but can't stand when they virtue signal what I hate.
    - deleted 21d ago
      [deleted]
- embedding-shape 22d ago
  Yeah, or local governments, or governments in general, seems strange to me too. But then probably they'd use Facebook/Instagram/Whatever instead of Twitter if Twitter wasn't available, and seemingly it's impossible for them to use something that isn't built like a panopticon that also wants to slurp up as much data from their users as possible.
  - pibaker 22d ago
    There should be a law mandating government agencies to not limit their electronic communications to private third party platforms. If they post something on Twitter, or worse, Facebook, they must also provide a copy of the post on their own website. Some kind of online government gazette, if you will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette
    - mitxela 21d ago
      How would you define it so the internet wouldn't also be considered a third-party platform?
      - account42 21d ago
        ISPs and infrastructure in the Internet are generally considered common carriers unlike social media platform who can do whatever they want. I don't understand why you think this would be hard to define at all.
- frumplestlatz 22d ago
  Why is it “so wrong” to meet your audience where they are?
  - earth-tattoo 22d ago
    [flagged]
  - harrisoned 22d ago
    The same reason is wrong to require a Google or Apple phone to exercise basic civil duties within government services. You are gating the service, or information, behind a 3rd party ToS, a login, and basically stating that you are not allowed to have it until you hand over personal data to such companies.
    - frumplestlatz 22d ago
      The comment I replied to said "large companies", not government, and I don't see the equivalence.
    - maipen 22d ago
      Why is it wrong? Is it wrong to require people to use certain tools? I don’t think so. It’s the same thing as requiring dress code to go to the tribunal or anything formal. People here overthink so much about this topic.
      - squeegmeister 22d ago
        Because the owner of said tool is a white nationalist
        frumplestlatz 22d ago
        I think you’ve confused HN for BlueSky.
        tempaccountabcd 22d ago
        [dead]
- alt227 21d ago
  ....in your own opinion.
  - amelius 21d ago
    Everything here is "in your own opinion". No need to be explicit about it.
- amelius 21d ago
  Governments in the EU, that's actually the worst group. Shows how addicted politicians are to attention.
  - eythian 20d ago
    They can definitely do better, for example the Dutch government runs its own Mastodon instance: https://social.overheid.nl/overview https://social.overheid.nl/overview The slogan being "Messages from the government. For everyone."
darkwi11ow 22d ago
Another "victory" for the freedom of information.
_giorgio_ 22d ago
[flagged]
- lapkaaaa 22d ago
  They don't want to make it irrevelant, it's only readonly so you can't post. Not everyone wants to create a xitter account just to find 1-2 posts
- danlitt 22d ago
  Because removing public content from the internet for profit is wrong and shouldn't be allowed. One man, or one company, should not be in charge of the free speech of half a billion people.
  - earth-tattoo 22d ago
    Ok, let's start a petition to remove the restrictions put on you to make a free public competitor. Oh wait, there are none. Nobody is stopping you!
    - danlitt 22d ago
      Why do you think having a free public competitor would solve the problem? Did you think about the problem at all before posting this?
- tomlockwood 22d ago
  I don't want to log on to his stupid ragebait website. I hate him for entirely different reasons to the usability of a shit website. Problem?
- aucisson_masque 22d ago
  Third party client websites have existed for a long time. It’s just about freedom.
lapkaaaa 22d ago
Why would anyone use any xitter service voluntarily at this point
- user43928 22d ago
  The service works just fine and it is a decent way to get the latest news. For example, rumors about latest AI developments are available there, but not here on HN. X also works well for media, which on HN you can only see after navigating to an external website. Many comment sections are rough, but usually not worth visiting apart from the top comments anyway. I don't like that Ads are hard to distinguish from regular posts. I believe the main reason for not using X is a political boycott. Many disagree politically, or don't entertain certain delusions about Musk that are popular with progressives.
  - Freedumbs 22d ago
    Or get this: you could read news if that's what you're interested in. Social media isn't news. It's entertainment.
    - user43928 22d ago
      I'd be more interested in your concrete alternative recommendation on where to get the rumors/insider news about AI rather than your opinion on how I should use social media.
      - Freedumbs 22d ago
        If you're interested in being entertained, continue to consume. If you want to learn about science, setup a system to consume Arxiv.
    - TiredOfLife 22d ago
      > Social media isn't news What is? TV, Radio, Newspapers, Town square, are all entertainment
pogue 22d ago
Any details about what's going on? Is Nitter/their Github still up?
krembo 22d ago
Not a popular question here, but what's the difference between xcancel or archive.org, and torrents and other pirate services alike? (except twitter is user content, yet per their tos xcancel is still piracy)
- draw_down 22d ago
  [dead]
- JuniperMesos 22d ago
  Torrents can be used to spread information that is in the public domain or licensed freely, just as much as they can be used to spread copyrighted information. Obviously most of what people actually use torrents for is pirating copyrighted media against the wishes of the copyright-holders, but that's not inherent to the protocol. Nitter instances by contrast are specific software intended to view information on a specific proprietary social media website in ways the owners of that website don't want them to. It's a question for lawyers if X declaring this to be a type of copyright violation will hold up in court, but X is also actively trying to block Nitter instances from accessing the site at all, which is a technological rather than legal mechanism.
simondotau 22d ago
If you don’t like X, I don’t understand why anyone would use a service like XCancel, which effectively helps maintain the cultural relevance of X. On a practical level, I’m also wondering what consistent legal standard people want when it comes to things like terms of service and individuals' copyright. It's unworkable to maintain one rule for the awesome people we might like and and another rule for the horrible despots we might not like.
- somedude895 22d ago
  [flagged]
  - MPSimmons 22d ago
    It seems intellectually dishonest to blanket-label any principled stance that you disagree with as "virtue signaling".
    - pickleRick243 22d ago
      I think the claim is that the principled stance would be to ignore all X content.
      - ceejayoz 22d ago
        Which is just the "yet you participate in society" meme again.
        bbg2401 22d ago
        No, it's not. Don't be so intellectually lazy. The author of the comment higher up is describing a person who is boycotting X because they are strongly against its stewardship and moderation but regardless continues to find ways to indulge themselves in the content produced by users of X, for other users of X. How else should we describe the position held? It's clearly not entirely principled and veers directly into performative action (i.e. virtue signalling). I admit I'm not nor have been a Twitter/X user so am able to look at the situation without a sense of entitlement or attachment.
aucisson_masque 22d ago
What was the Chinese alternative ? At this point I’m just going to use that instead, lawyers won’t be able to take that down.
- Markoff 22d ago
  I think you mean https://twitterwebviewer.com/en https://twitterwebviewer.com/en which was also taken down anyway I ditched xcancel for redirectors like https://twit.0r.cx/ https://twit.0r.cx/ or https://xxcancel.com https://xxcancel.com
  - aucisson_masque 19d ago
    Well that was fast. People were expecting it to be immune to Elon musk lawyer but I guess it wasn’t at all.
throwa356262 22d ago
Proposal: Set up a mastodon account that mirrors your (or someone elses) X account. This way people who want can continue using X, and other people can read & refer to their posts without needing to log into X.
- morningsam 22d ago
  I've been wondering why ~everyone hasn't already been doing this, so my guess is that Twitter's API doesn't allow it.
  - abletonlive 22d ago
    Because mastadon is not relevant to anybody but the people on HN. It's 2026, I really can't believe HN is still stuck on mastadon.
  - Nemo_bis 21d ago
    Yes, it's because of the XTwitter API changes (mostly between February 2023 and February 2024). People have been crossposting to Mastodon and the fediverse for many years. In the old days you would do it with a desktop or mobile client for Twitter and Identi.ca. In the 2020s there were many server-side crossposters like moa.party. https://wiert.me/2025/05/19/moa-link-your-mastodon-account-to-twitter-with-moa-bridge/ https://wiert.me/2025/05/19/moa-link-your-mastodon-account-t... Nowadays such clients are effectively impossible, because the XTwitter API pricing is designed for business users only. Some bigger services can afford to pay for the privilege to post via the API (e.g. Buffer I think?), which can work for corporate communications. The prices are such that often it's cheaper to pay a person to do the crossposting manually and do it properly while at it.
mitxela 22d ago
There are now about 10 different people running them, and you can also run your own. https://status.d420.de/ https://status.d420.de/ The browser extension "Libredirect" will transparently redirect you to a working one or one of your choice.
solarkraft 22d ago
So X is down again. Oh well.
chinathrow 22d ago
Has anyone ever succeeded going up against Elon legally?
okeuro49 22d ago
I wish X would allow browsing threads, which is the only reason I use xcancel. I wouldn't even mind seeing advertisements. I just don't want to have an X account.
ArtTimeInvestor 22d ago
When I read this, the Arweave project [1] comes to mind. Isn't this the exact use case it was built for, preservation of news data in a way that it cannot be tampered with and so that it is kept accessible for everyone forever? [1] https://arweave.org/ https://arweave.org/
ocd 22d ago
I don't see how any government or business (especially the former) can justify using X at this point when it doesn't serve the public interest or the interest of customers who deserve at least some choice. It's as unreasonable for them as using Instagram or a dating app for something intended for broad reach and accessibility. I don't particularly like Bluesky, but it's publicly readable and has RSS. Any real solution would be protocol or standard instead of yet another closed service, though. For now, I see Nitter and XCancel as a temporary fix until people abandon it for whatever practical, economic, or political reason(s) they may have.
- mitxela 22d ago
  The reason is simple: they were using Twitter when it was publicly readable and had RSS, and they have no selfish reason to stop. (Selfless reasons don't count, everybody is selfish)
  - timthelion 21d ago
    Well if they want their posts to be readable they do have a selfish reason.
- cebert 22d ago
  You go where your people are. I think it’s very reasonable to post updates on Facebook and X.
- trekz 22d ago
  > I don't see how any government or business (especially the former) can justify using X at this point Open RSS wrote about exactly this a couple weeks ago [1]. Bluesky being publicly readable with RSS is an improvement. But government offices should be publishing on their own RSS feeds, and the platforms should be secondary, not the other way around. The amount of policy that gets announced on social media without even a mention on their own website is bizarre. Why isn't posting their content off platform legally required at this point? [1] https://openrss.org/blog/government-updates-belong-in-an-open-feed https://openrss.org/blog/government-updates-belong-in-an-ope...
- 22d ago
fivetomidnight 22d ago
[dead]
dpmartinez 22d ago
Are there other instances available? X can't ban them all. I wish legal issues wouldn’t exist for this project and X would stop attacking projects that provide information for free. Privacy is important more than ever as many of us don't want to login into X.
- deleted 22d ago
  [deleted]
- unfocso 22d ago
  There's plenty of other instances running on nitter, some secret/invite only (and as such more chance to fly under the radar). The code is open source: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter albeit X DMCA'd the repo.
  - amiga386 22d ago
    > X DMCA'd the repo. No they didn't, or you'd see the text "Repository unavailable due to DMCA takedown." and wouldn't have access to the repo at all. Instead you have full access to it, its author having merely archived it out of caution. No reference to nitter in https://github.com/github/dmca/ https://github.com/github/dmca/
    - embedding-shape 22d ago
      Seems you're right. They have done this in the past though, so wouldn't exactly be a surprise. Here is what the "free speech" platform have censored previously on GitHub: > X Corp. employs various technical protection measures to control access to its copyrighted works, including those at issue here (API schemas and platform content): e.g., official X Corp. API key/OAuth authentication, rate-limiting mechanisms, proprietary behavioral pattern detection, TLS fingerprint validation, and x-clienttransaction-id checks. The repository referenced above appears specifically designed to circumvent these measures using browser cookies, curl_cffi TLS impersonation, fake headers, request jitter, and reverse-engineered GraphQL queries. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/b2c88bad7dd771dc7d1842ff81529b86c701f296/2026/03/2026-03-27-x-corp.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/b2c88bad7dd771dc7d1842ff...
esarbe 22d ago
https://status.d420.de/ https://status.d420.de/
goda90 22d ago
> You can find the content you were looking for on the original website *if you log in to an account A big reason many people use Nitter instances is that X has become very locked down for unauthenticated users.
yoz-y 22d ago
Web version of Twitter has become unusable now. So much so that I wonder why they still keep it.
- rob74 22d ago
  So they can try to nag you into signing up and installing the app? Which doesn't work in 99.9% of cases, but try telling that to your boss if his name is Elon Musk...
  - freedomben 22d ago
    Sadly, the success rate is significantly better than 0.1%. as a broad strategy, it clearly works. I wish it didn't, but there is a reason why all these companies do it.
- uurrnn 22d ago
  So that you can be linked to it and told to make an account.
  - IshKebab 22d ago
    It did that long before Elon took over. He's made it worse, sure. But it was never really usable at any point.
- macNchz 22d ago
  For years Twitter stood out among major platforms for having an actually-usable mobile web interface that seemed to be a first-class citizen / wasn’t intentionally degraded to force you into the app, and didn’t even nag you about it. Unsurprising they’ve since ruined it.
  - weberer 22d ago
    I'm calling bullshit. Twitter was always hostile to logged-out users. You could say "Well technically I was talking about 2006 before it got big" so I'll just say it was just as bad 10 years ago as it is today.
jmclnx 22d ago
This to me is a big issue. You have politicians, government entities and other public institutions posting to twitter, but to access we need to log in. There needs to be a free, non-ad, non-login environment people can use to access this information posted by public entities. This comment also applies to facebook too, which I think is even worse than twitter.
- DaedalusII 22d ago
  but how to do that without protecting the content from enemy LLM companies scraping?
  - jasonlotito 22d ago
    On the off chance someone thinks this is serious, being locked behind a login doesn't prevent your site from being scraped.
    - amiga386 22d ago
      Indeed, the shitter authors recommended you buy a bundle of Twitter accounts with 2FA details when setting up your own instance, to avoid getting rate-limited. There are millions of accounts for sale, roughly $0.10 per account. https://hstockplus.com/accounts/twitter-x-accounts?sortBy=price-low https://hstockplus.com/accounts/twitter-x-accounts?sortBy=pr...
      - zImPatrick 22d ago
        This wasn‘t recommended officially by the authors, right? I saw it on someone‘s codeberg fork but not on the official repo
        amiga386 22d ago
        Sure, let's say shitter's authors: https://codeberg.org/mv12star/shitter/wiki/Creating-session-tokens https://codeberg.org/mv12star/shitter/wiki/Creating-session-...
pamcake 22d ago
Of more concern, the Nitter github repository was permanently archived a couple of days ago. https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter
- zImPatrick 22d ago
  Zedeus said "it's hopefully temporary, but it'll remain that way until further notice." in the matrix room
- latexr 22d ago
  > permanently archived Why do you say it’s permanent? Unarchiving a GitHub repository is reversible, and just as easy as archiving it.
- Leonard_of_Q 22d ago
  On that same page: UPDATE: Following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue. More details will be announced soon.
  - petcat 22d ago
    > Following legal advice It's impossible to know what this "legal advice" was, but 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.
    - graemep 22d ago
      I imagine it will be hosted in jurisdictions other than the US.
    - advisedwang 22d ago
      In cases like these, companies often try to go after the upstream project, not just operators. The law gives them lots of tools for this: the CFAA has a conspiracy provision; The DMCA has a provision against making software for circumventing copyright; Trademark law might make the name nitter or xcancel illegal; and finally even if the claims are weak the litigation itself is an enormous burden
accountrequired 22d ago
i just want to unmute the video and full screen it without logging in. i click twitter link and it is muted.
rob74 22d ago
Maybe instead of trying to get rid of services that provide a more convenient access to X to non-logged-in users, they should realize that there is a real market behind these services - users that will likely never sign up to X, but who want to read/watch some content without the incessant nagging and limitations that X subjects non-logged-in users to?
- pluc 22d ago
  Reddit says hello
  - forestingfisher 22d ago
    And Reddit has also started blocking signed out users in my region.
    - immibis2 22d ago
      And demanding ID!
    - vova_hn2 22d ago
      They are now telling me that I need an account to use old.reddit.com (the only usable version of Reddit UI). Needless to say, I have stopped visiting Reddit completely.
      - boston_clone 22d ago
        Perhaps more frustratingly, if you bite the bullet and browse the "new" version on your mobile browser, the page will eventually become non-responsive and have ~60% of your screen covered by a bottom banner that prompts you to download their app to continue. It's like they are actively trying to kill their userbase.
        immibis2 22d ago
        Like most big tech companies now, they are actively trying to kill their non-contributing userbase, where contributing means viewing an ad for every second post. They know that perhaps 5% of the non-contributing userbase they kill will become contributing userbase, while the other 95% will just leave, and this trade seems good to them.
p-o 22d ago
Free speech absolutist, btw.
- mbmbn 22d ago
  Can you point the way where Free Speech is being countered here?
- arrowsmith 22d ago
  What does proxying someone else's content have to do with free speech?
  - Forgeties79 22d ago
    You have to admit, the “free speech” shield-wielding megalomaniac working so hard to keep people from freely accessing info isn’t exactly great optics.
    - freedomben 22d ago
      I'm very much on the side of xcancel and nitter on this one, but I do think it's fair to point out that Twitter is free of monetary charge. It's not free in the sense that you do have to provide some personal information and data to them in exchange for that free account, but it isn't a huge roadblock for most people, however annoying it may be. Now that said, I sure hope Elon will pivot this and make these services unnecessary. I'm not holding my breath though.
      - angoragoats 22d ago
        The phrase "free speech" does not typically mean "free as in beer," rather it means "free as in freedom," so in this case you're conflating the two meanings of "free" in English. The fact that Twitter is login-gated makes it objectively less free as in freedom.
        freedomben 22d ago
zqwt3k 22d ago
Thanks Elon, now we know that scraping is illegal! Very good to clarify that for future proceedings against the AI thieves.
- wahnfrieden 22d ago
  It’s the rehosting of the content not the scraping Edit: not a moral stance
  - zqwt3k 22d ago
    That is what all LLMs could do in 2023, verbatim, before they trained it out of them in order to keep up the pretense that there is no plagiarism. Now they all obfuscate the original or refuse to cite.
  - echelon 22d ago
    Grok can do that if you give it an HN thread or other websites.
  - jm4 22d ago
    I love how the content belongs to them when someone else reposts it but it belongs to the user if the content is illegal. Such a double standard with these social media and AI companies. Why do we put up with it?
    - embedding-shape 22d ago
      > Why do we put up with it? You let it happen. Once people stop letting it happen, it'll stop. But social media is apparently the new "opium of the masses" so here we are and no one wants to do anything.
      - flaburgan 22d ago
        I actually do want to do something. I started to scrape Twitter to make it freely available. The web should stay open.
deleted 22d ago
[deleted]
newscracker 22d ago
This may be a situation where revealing a solution may end up harming it. For those who use iOS and other Apple OSes, I learned of this recently released free Safari extension called Litterbox that allows looking at one post on x.com. [1]: https://andadinosaur.com/launch-litterbox https://andadinosaur.com/launch-litterbox
- Forgeties79 22d ago
  People really need to just not visit it. You don’t need to browse Twitter to be on top of current events. Anything posted there will be available elsewhere within minutes (and hopefully it will have been vetted somewhat)
  - rolymath 22d ago
    [flagged]
    - PxldLtd 22d ago
      I don't use twitter but it feels like a platform for bothering terminally-online celebrities
  - stingraycharles 22d ago
    Yeah as long as the audience is there, people will keep posting on Twitter.
  - BizarreByte 22d ago
    Who uses twitter for current events? I’m there for extremely niche hobby related posts.
    - tommica 22d ago
      Curious, what is the hobby?
  - larsmaxfield 22d ago
pino83 22d ago
There is no reason for xcancel to exist. Either you cancel X. Meaning: NOT consuming X content. Or you just visit X.com. Right? Right?
- bananaflag 22d ago
  [flagged]
  - pino83 22d ago
    Well, there's X.com for that.
- embedding-shape 22d ago
  > There is no reason for xcancel to exist A bit like your comment. It's possible that other people you want to read, are using a platform you don't want to use. Have this perhaps never happened to you, even once?
  - pino83 22d ago
    A good idea would be: Make a decision. A trade-off. Either these people are important enough to you, and you don't disfavor the platform soo much. Then visit that platform. Or you dislike the platform so much that you even wonder why these people are there. You definitely don't want to be in contact with the platform. If so, then give up these people. There's no free lunch, right? You also (typically) cannot buy steak, but then somehow not pay the money by showing some fake credit card. That would typically involve crime, right? Make decisions, guys!!! Make decisions! Your cat and mouse games are embarrassing... And that doesn't get better in any way just by downvoting me. ;) ;) ;)
    - immibis2 22d ago
      One possible decision is to use a deshittifying front-end, like Nitter.
      - 22d ago
small_model 22d ago
[flagged]
- yawpitch 22d ago
  Anything that takes money away from narcoleptic, right wing [self]-abusers of the COA^1 is a net good for humanity. ^1: Concept of Acronyms
- kijashdkujdfhas 22d ago
  > It takes away earnings from X users Oh no! How awful! So terrible! People who produce nothing of value might earn slightly less! Moving on to more pressing matters...
ImJamal 22d ago
It just feels like every social media site is login-walling public posts. I can't think of a major social media site (reddit, Instagram, FB, Twitter, etc) that doesn't do this to varying degrees. I can only think of minor sites (bluesky, truth social, etc) that allow access. It feels like an end of an era.
- swed420 22d ago
  Reddit is still viewable, though they did finally axe "old" reddit for those not logged in. But at least reddit still has lots of nitter-style mirrors as an alternative.
  - ImJamal 22d ago
    New reddit was getting login popups for a while as well. From my rudimentary checks it varied from subreddit to subreddit.
thesdev 22d ago
https://nitter.click https://nitter.click still works right as rain, and so do many other Nitter instances.
999900000999 22d ago
Makes sense, the legal system is pay to play. Bluesky is here anyway. Hell, you’re arguably on a Twitter alternative right now.
ACCount39 22d ago
Xitter can't make a web UI that's actually usable to save their lives - so they're going after the one platform that does with lawfare. Despicable behavior.
- immibis2 22d ago
  It's not that they can't. They don't want to. The reasons it is unusable are the things that make them so much money. If they made a usable one they'd lose even more money.
rob 22d ago
IMO, if you hate Elon so much, you shouldn't be visiting his website. You look very odd and silly if you still want to engage with it and just use a different UI layer (i.e., "XCancel", "Nitter".) If they want you to have an account to read the post and you want to read the post, create an account, log in, and move on. If you don't want to do that, nobody is forcing you to view a public website. There's alternatives like "Bluesky" out there that might be good for you.
- JeremyNT 22d ago
  My municipality, and many other governmental entities, post official updates to x.com
  - 8note 22d ago
    have you asked them to switch or to post to many places at once?
- protoster 22d ago
  I don't want to use "X", I want to read updates from orgs and people who, unfortunately, don't post them elsewhere.
- somehnguy 22d ago
  I don't visit his website. That's the whole point.
- arijun 22d ago
  I don't want to be tracked by x.com, but still want to be able to read links people send me to tweets. It's pretty reductive to say that people are using it because they "hate Elon so much," or even that they "want to engage with it.'
- sortoflog 22d ago
  > You look very odd and silly if you still want to engage with it and just use a different UI layer (i.e., "XCancel", "Nitter".) Why? The site still hosts plenty of content worth seeing. Is it really so silly to do it via a better UI, or to not want an account?
Grimeton 22d ago
Their browser verification never made it into the same room as my browser anyway...
trey-jones 22d ago
Regardless of the legality of the service: I always use xcancel instead of X. I don't have a twitter account and I don't want to sign in. I just occasionally want to read what some people had to say about something. Even this is usually a mistake. It's probably better taken as entertainment. My point is: companies stop making your product suck, and people won't have a reason to try and fix it for you.
- WarmWash 22d ago
  The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads, or if it does have ads/tracking, that you are trivially capable of blocking them while still totally enjoying the service/product. xcancel, archive, whatever are all tools almost solely meant to access monetized content without having to contribute to the monetize part. Then those companies are told they "suck" when they don't like it. Most importantly, the competitors that the internet endlessly cries for to show up to dethrone these giants, see what is going on and say "lol, nope".
  - swed420 22d ago
    > The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". There's no reason you can't abolish login walls while still serving ads. > The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. This vision is ripe for the picking: https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/ https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/
    - WarmWash 22d ago
      >Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. What rubs me the wrong way about statements like this, is that it is almost always said by people who totally miss that they are advocating for things that are personally profitable for them. A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. That same end user, who detests the idea of having to spend money, then complains loudly that corporations just want their money. And it is completely lost on them they are playing the exact same game as corporations. The actual break from "corporate profits" is to not engage with the corporations products at all. But that overwhelming is not what we see. Instead it is just two entities fighting over money, because they both have the same root motivation to maximize money.
mw888 22d ago
So are you, dear reader, for intellectual property laws or not. I see a lot of "anti-this" sentiment confused with "anti-AI [data collection]." The consistent view is one regarding IP in general - not reverse engineering your morals based on the case.
- arijun 22d ago
  I do take your point, that someone against using twitter for training data in AI who then uses a service that might be violating copyright seems hypocritical. But first of all, the people voicing these opinions may not be the same person, despite commenting on the same website. But more directly addressing your point, I do think you could easily find a consistent moral stance that thinks taking tweets to train AI is worse than republishing those same tweets on a website. An argument can be made that the person writing those tweets wants to be heard, so republishing the tweet is in line with (your best guess of) what they want. Whereas consumption of the tweet for AI training is less likely to be consistent with the wants of the original author.
  - mw888 18d ago
    That's the type of moral stance which doesn't encode well into reality. I don't even agree with it, but it is surely consistent enough from your end. The real issue is that it crosses so many practical legal boundaries, mainly around intent that it will never survive as representative of your actual morals—through the grinder that is the modern legal system.
bithammerthunde 22d ago
I think XCancel should use their momentum and set up their own social media network, instead of scrapping the domain.
- dismalaf 22d ago
  Then it'll just be another Bluesky...
  - abirch 22d ago
    or mastodon...
- Tepix 21d ago
  Suggestion: Every time someone uses nitter, the post in question is copied over to Mastodon and subsequent accesses just redirect to the copied post. That way you can interact with the copy on Mastodon.
VCFundedGenYer 22d ago
As a reminder - get off Twitter and get onto Mastodon (Bluesky is dead to rights). Those of you addicted to what was formerly Twitter need to move on.
vova_hn2 22d ago
Just by googling "twitter api" I am able to find an "unofficial API" (scraped, obviously), that gives you access to tweets for around $0.15/1k tweets. Which is expensive if you want to, let's say, train a model, but super cheap for a casual user. A nice UI around such API probably can be one-shotted with modern LLM-coding models and tools. Or, you can go the hard way and vibecode something around buying twitter accounts (just several bucks per each) and proxies. What I'm trying to say, that with modern tools it is incredibly easy to bypass the restrictions on reading twitter without an account, even if they manage to take down all the nitter instances, try to make finding nitter source code harder etc.
- wraptile 22d ago
  You can scrape twitter pretty easily yourself with an account (lots of free code on github) but that's the thing - you need an account which is legally complicated but for your own personal use you can just create a dummy account and you'll never be blocked.
  - vova_hn2 22d ago
    Don't they require a phone number? Even if they don't, they probably require email. I don't really want to give them my main email and even less - phone number. So, buying an account seems like less of a hassle, than figuring out where to get a temporary email.
    - wraptile 22d ago
      These are all available for couple of cents per email/phone number. I don't want to advertise these services directly but they work very well and you can find them with keywords like "SMS otp code service"
    - immibis2 22d ago
      They make it really hard to get an account, no matter how legit you are, but if you eventually get one, you can plug it into your own private Nitter instance.
  - 21d ago
nunez 22d ago
it's going to be a cat and mouse game for as long as X can legally afford to keep it going (i.e. til the heat death of the universe) regardless, no matter how hard elon turns the screws on their customers, people will continue to use twitter/X because "that's where everyone is" and places like HN will continue to allow these links because "that's where the news is" despite healthier alternatives like the Mastodon network and Bluesky existing. whatever. i've redirected x to 0.0.0.0 when the first warning shot was fired and called it a day. rocks are looking like a great place to live under right about now anyway.
- blfr 22d ago
  I use Twitter daily and haven't noticed any screws. How is Elon supposedly turning them?
  - joquarky 22d ago
    Don't sea lion.
    - nailer 21d ago
      "Sea lioning" seems to be asking for proof of what what stated.
Aerocatia 22d ago
I have been suspended from Ex-Twitter for months for "inauthentic behavior" despite only ever just using the site normally. I would very much like to have nothing to do with this site anymore, but unfortunately many people and organizations from before Elon took it over still post there and I can't make them all move to another site (and the same site for that matter), so here we are.
- ralfd 22d ago
  Come on, be honest, what did you do?
  - captainbadass33 22d ago
    dared to use twitter with only an anonymous email is my guess. musk demands you phone and biometrics
    - declan_roberts 22d ago
      Phone number requirement was thankfully removed some time after Musk took over.
      - mitxela 21d ago
        Right now you need either a phone number or an actual phone (hardware ID) plus email
        declan_roberts 21d ago
        Exactly. A passcode and email is significantly more privacy-forward than a phone number. A leaked passcode hash is meaningless on the internet and can't be used to triangulate you.
    - cindyllm 22d ago
      [dead]
  - 22d ago
boomboomsubban 22d ago
What reason could there be that they can't share details?
- AntonyGarand 22d ago
  Pending legal advice I would assume
- immibis2 22d ago
  You never share information about a lawsuit unless a lawyer says you can. I'm not sure why - I presume it's because it might help the other side.
seatac76 22d ago
Man the RSS feeds are busted too now :/
zem 22d ago
I wonder if part of the lawsuit required them to link to twitter - it doesn't seem like a very on-brand thing to do.
DavCreator 22d ago
https://xxcancel.com https://xxcancel.com is up and redirecting to working Nitter instances.
- philip-b 22d ago
  Is there a way to make Firefox autoredirect to that?
  - tommica 22d ago
    Probably with some userscript?
  - pelzatessa 22d ago
    Libredirect does exactly that: https://github.com/libredirect/browser_extension https://github.com/libredirect/browser_extension
  - er0k 22d ago
    https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ Include pattern: ^https?://x.com/(.*) Redirect to: https://xxcancel.com/$1
  - n_plus_1_acc 21d ago
    uBlock Origin can do it, no need for something else https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/discussions/2666#discussioncomment-15887996 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/discussions/26...
- gavinhungry 21d ago
  I put this together this morning: https://github.com/gavinhungry/nitter-bitter https://github.com/gavinhungry/nitter-bitter You can self-host it anywhere, and use the aforementioned Redirector [1] extension: ^https://(?:twitter|x)\.com/(.*) https://nitter.example.tld/$1 [1] https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/
- chr15m 21d ago
  Also twiiit.com
redbell 22d ago
> You can find the content you were looking for on the original website: > Continue to X This was hard to swallow for me! Why you are redirecting to X, which is the exact opposite of what you are offering?! Don't get me wrong, I use XCancel and Nitter regularly an I like them, it just hits hard!
captainbadass33 22d ago
[dead]
captainbadass33 22d ago
[flagged]
butlike 22d ago
The MOMENT xcancel gets shut down, someone should sue the president for putting official communication on a closed platform.
- xyst 22d ago
  Then take ownership lil bro. Any of those scumbag lawyers will be happy to take your money to do whatever you want.
- mococa 22d ago
  the president? I think all presidents does the same.
- jayknight 22d ago
  Is he there again? I thought he did everything on his own service, whatever it's called.
sourcecodeplz 22d ago
wtf the guy payed what 40billion for this website? yes, he can enforce whatever ToS he wants .
phforms 22d ago
I know it’s hard for some people (for understandable reasons), but at some point we have to ignore the X site completely and make politicians and public services/institutions aware that some people do not have or want access to the site. That is the only way anything might change someday. Maybe I’m just being naive here, but what else can you do? xcancel was amazing and I hope they can continue in some way. But since I have no actual need to go to the X site, I choose to completely ignore it, regardless of who posts what there. Most important things will be in the news anyway or you just pick it up from talking to other people.
- demo4567 22d ago
  [flagged]
  - tommica 22d ago
    Holy buzzword-salad, Batman! In any case X is a pretty decent place, as long as you mute the topics that get annoying. But the Algorithm is quite good at serving you what you engage with.
    - bigyabai 22d ago
      > as long as you mute the topics that get annoying People have been saying this since the Dorsey days, they were wrong back then and they're still wrong today.
  - gfdd 22d ago
    [dead]
- asdff 22d ago
  I don't understand who all these people are who keep saying 'but I need twitter for my local politicians.' Like really? I have not followed any local politicians or authorities twitter and I still get relevant information. Believe it or not, which you might not if all you do is parrot these comments and I have seen this very comment line of thinking parroted for YEARS about twitter, most people do not follow the city hall twitter if they even have a twitter, and they get by fine. I mean people are citing they need to follow their utility. Are you kidding me? Your utility will post a highly localized service outage that might only affect 1 block of a city or less to their world facing twitter feed? And not simply alert customers via their phone on file as they've done for me forever?
CodeWriter23 22d ago
Good: Insta requiring login Facebook requiring login Bad: X requiring login
- notthemessiah 21d ago
  Good: The Open Web Bad: Insta requiring login Facebook requiring login Xitter requiring login
outside1234 22d ago
Why are people still using X? I mean seriously people, move on and stop using this closed ecosystem that is propaganda around elections.
aaroninsf 22d ago
Surprised there are still people who think the issue with "X" is that it is a bad product. It is a bad product, and it is pathological in the way all degraded social media platforms are bad. But it's also worse than those others, in well documented ways; and it's long past time anyone with integrity found alternatives. The failure of the "AI" industry to do so is an indictment and serious red flag.
ck2 22d ago
every official government entity needs to get off X every local, state and federal entity nothing published there can be read logged out or archived has to be violating law if not best practices
parasti 22d ago
Why even keep using zombie Twitter? I used to scroll Twitter a lot but deleted my account back when. Literally any other social network seems more appealing these days, and not by a small margin.
joshcsimmons 22d ago
Good. X is the public square. The algorithm is superior to any other social media site out there right now. They are right to charge for the API and right to shut down impostor sites. What did they say around 2020? If you don't like it - BUILD YOUR OWN.
- worik 22d ago
  > X is the public square > They are right to charge for the API I might just leave that there...
deleted 22d ago
[deleted]
deleted 22d ago
[deleted]
elAhmo 22d ago
This is Mr. comedy is legal and free speech, and public town square, right? I understand that he is a vile POS, but I don't understand people supporting him and using his products.
asadm 22d ago
I don't really get the hate for X btw. What kind of kool-aid is everyone on? I seem to be able to post/access pro-Palestinian content there easily, no other platform lets me do that. It has also been great for my project and find the right community from scratch.
nixosbestos 21d ago
Fuck X, and this place while we're at it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403658 Cost me $500 (to a good charity, oh well) and guess what, I was fucking right. I have subby-tendancies but some of you put me to shame. Me personally? I don't like the taste of rubber. lol, go try to just even sign up for a new X account and let me know how that goes. god damn sycophancy.
squirreljak 21d ago
goyimx.com is still working fine thankfully
_kst_ 21d ago
Neither this post nor the linked site explain what XCancel is/was. Since I wasn't familiar with XCancel, an announcement that it's suspended is not particularly informative. Apparently XCancel is an instance of Nitter. According to Wikipedia, "Nitter is designed to allow access to X without tracking, advertisements, or the need for an account. It only supports browsing, and cannot be used to sign in or interact with the X community." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitter
- mitxela 21d ago
  Example: https://nitter.kareem.one/google https://nitter.kareem.one/google
maxlin 21d ago
What did they expect. Just use the site, people
- platevoltage 21d ago
  Or just not.
- SahAssar 21d ago
  If the site didn't require login, sure. Now it'll be "Just don't use the site and encourage anyone else to stay away"
clcaev 21d ago
What is the core value proposition of twitter? It seems simple, short form informations delivery (eg “follow me on twitter”) is central. The “likes”, retweets, and follower counts are secondary but perhaps important metrics that drive engagement. A simple link plus QR for paper is needed. Moderation seems a challenge. Are there simpler alternatives to mastodon? is federation possible? Why is RSS not used for this?
- cakeface 21d ago
  Bluesky strikes a balance between the federated Mastodon and the Twitter walled garden.
  - miladyincontrol 21d ago
    I'm not so sure about that. Bluesky by large migrated from twitter aiming to escape the likes of Elon's politics, but they still brought over some of the most toxic cancel/brigade culture that twitter had to offer. Not suggesting all of bluesky is bad, but it sure ain't the most pleasant crowd in it's own right either.
    - notthemessiah 21d ago
      Bluesky, like Mastodon, is built on an open network on open source code. Run your own data server and moderation services that cater to your needs. Many are already doing it: Northsky, Eurosky, Blacksky, etc. If you want to live in a safe space isolated from the mainnet and its allegedly toxic users, you can do that too: Roundabout is built on ATProto but run on its own network, also Truth Social and Threads are forked versions of Mastodon but federated with nobody (Threads used to have opt-in Mastodon federation before Facebook decided they no longer want users to be able to do that).
- SwellJoe 21d ago
  Mastodon isn't all that complicated. But, obviously it's not where people went when people fled Xitter, by and large. The funny people and journalists mostly went to Bluesky and the normal people mostly went to Threads because they already had an Instagram account. The Nazis and child pornographers and the people who were comfortable being around Nazis and child pornographers remained on Xitter. But, a few nerds went to the fediverse and we are generally having a nice time there. RSS is not a read-write medium. You can't realistically carry on a semi-realtime conversation over RSS.
armanckeser 21d ago
I wrote about how to redirect to nitter instances on any platform a month ago [1], and a few days later we had the cease and desist. Fortunately, you can redirect to twiiit.com and that will find a working instance for you. [1] https://armanckeser.com/writing/redirecting-x-com https://armanckeser.com/writing/redirecting-x-com
rmarable 21d ago
X is a cesspool, hence the existence of XCancel.
daorhe2272 21d ago
I live a happy, fulfilling live without having an account in X or reading tweets from third party sites. Just saying...
- rmarable 21d ago
  This is the way.
kingkandu 21d ago
Twitter is a weird one because I absolutely hate using it and as someone who's built many feeds I can see how they're trying to farm engagement at the cost of their user's health. But it is simultaneously the best place to get real time information and after reddit the best place to find human/bot generated content so I do still need access to the data. Trusting Zuck to fill the gap with Threads is a moron's endeavour and Mastadon is too fragmented we need a centralized good actor to fix this.
p0w3n3d 21d ago
I don't want to sound like a geezer but backdays twitter was a web page, like hacker news. Now it's an app, that wouldn't work as a page in phone's browser. And installing an app is basically installing a spy nowadays
harrouet 21d ago
I used to be a heavy Twitter user. I quit when it started to become a dump area for fascist rhetoric. I guess we're seeing Musk-defending-freedom-of-speech in action.
gigatexal 21d ago
I would fund monthly any service that allows us to view and follow and document and track what happens on Twitter without having to have an account and thereby inflate Elon’s ego and numbers.
freefaler 21d ago
The same what reddit did, "this is our content" we'll try to milk it to the tilt. I think this is akin to a reverse "tragedy of commons" but for user generated content verticals. It makes economic sense for them to try to lock it and they will try to lock it unless there is a market force that prevents that. Sadly, market forces in these markets are few and far between. Cory Doctorow argues that the antidote to walled platforms is to restore the legal and technical right to adversarial interoperability. Users and developers should have the legal freedom to reverse-engineer APIs, build scrapers, create cross-platform bridges, and deploy third-party readers without facing lawsuits under anti-hacking statutes like the CFAA or DMCA Section 1201.
- alex1138 21d ago
  Once again, yet another legitimate comment that was [dead] that I had to 'vouch' for. HN either has broken filters (understandable, combatting spam) or seriously loves censorship
prolly97 21d ago
ITT. Non-X users complaining that they can't use X. If you don't like the content on X enough to make an account, I don't see how this is a big loss. And yes I've on occasion had the same thought with TikTok - it'd be nice to see the vids that people send me, without making an account. But I'll just have to live my life without having seen that one super funny/interesting/enlightening video, or have to ask for a summary :)
- Melatonic 21d ago
  It's more that tons of local services (like firefighting updates) directly post their latest updates there
  - iinnPP 21d ago
    Time to pressure the local place to do the right thing.
- ben_w 21d ago
  > If you don't like the content on X enough to make an account The content itself isn't the problem, it's the website. Other people keep linking me to X posts they want to share. The website is so bad that it (was) faster to manually change the URL even on my phone than to let the browser try to load the original. Now I ask people to share screenshots of the posts instead of sending links.
- nananana9 21d ago
  The primary difference of course being that not a single worthwhile thing has ever been posted on TikTok, while X is a "public space" used by politicians, governments, public figures, news agencies, et al. I'd like to see the fire department's tweet without having to sign up for X on the spot right now and do a 20 round captcha, followed by a prompt to install the app to verify my age, because suspicious activity was detected. Of course - ideally - nobody would use this platform for anything important, but given that they do, I'd like open access to it.
  - 21d ago
Prydown 21d ago
Well, there goes my weekend refactoring that integration. Guess it's back to custom retry logic for us.
Sorrel47 21d ago
Was curious how long a service for cancelling things would last. Guess they cancelled themselves.
robeym 21d ago
The easiest solution is to make an empty alias account on twitter just for the purpose of accessing links. I use an email address for this. Spam@myemaildomain.com. it forwards all emails to the address right to spam, it's great! No cease and desist letters from Mr. musk , yet !
- wffurr 21d ago
  My only problem is that by viewing tweets with your alias account is that you're still contributing to their DAU / MAU (daily/monthly active user) count. I want the service to die; their usage numbers should go to zero.
hdhjsjja 21d ago
What I don't understand is why X does not block any access without signing in and also throttle the requests. Whats stopping them?
- deleted 21d ago
  [deleted]
Saline9515 21d ago
Hosting a nitter instance on a Rpi or a phone behind tailscale is trivial in the post-llm age, if anyone wants to try it.
silexia 21d ago
Good riddance. X is awesome, go direct!

749 points by gaganyaan 22d ago

Remember when twitter was “the public sphere” Lulz

XCancel service is suspended. Unfortunately, due to a new development in the ongoing legal proceedings, we are required to suspend this service again until further notice. We can't share more details. You can find the content you were looking for on the original website: Continue to X Thank you for your understanding. And the trust you have put into the XCancel project.

Lord-Jobo 22d ago
Classic “we must show good faith and good will before the judicial system by keeping our stuff offline, until proceedings are complete” “Does the other side need to show any good faith?” “No, in fact the judge is more likely to side either then the more angry and aggressive they are” “….great”

cube00 22d ago

The fact that so many large companies are still on X is so wrong.

melodyogonna 22d ago
Why?
- bigyabai 21d ago
  Because I want to identify with luxury brands, celebrities and lifestyle corporations, but can't stand when they virtue signal what I hate.
  - deleted 21d ago
    [deleted]
embedding-shape 22d ago
Yeah, or local governments, or governments in general, seems strange to me too. But then probably they'd use Facebook/Instagram/Whatever instead of Twitter if Twitter wasn't available, and seemingly it's impossible for them to use something that isn't built like a panopticon that also wants to slurp up as much data from their users as possible.
- pibaker 22d ago
  There should be a law mandating government agencies to not limit their electronic communications to private third party platforms. If they post something on Twitter, or worse, Facebook, they must also provide a copy of the post on their own website. Some kind of online government gazette, if you will. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette
  - mitxela 21d ago
    How would you define it so the internet wouldn't also be considered a third-party platform?
    - account42 21d ago
      ISPs and infrastructure in the Internet are generally considered common carriers unlike social media platform who can do whatever they want. I don't understand why you think this would be hard to define at all.
frumplestlatz 22d ago
Why is it “so wrong” to meet your audience where they are?
- earth-tattoo 22d ago
  [flagged]
- harrisoned 22d ago
  The same reason is wrong to require a Google or Apple phone to exercise basic civil duties within government services. You are gating the service, or information, behind a 3rd party ToS, a login, and basically stating that you are not allowed to have it until you hand over personal data to such companies.
  - frumplestlatz 22d ago
    The comment I replied to said "large companies", not government, and I don't see the equivalence.
  - maipen 22d ago
    Why is it wrong? Is it wrong to require people to use certain tools? I don’t think so. It’s the same thing as requiring dress code to go to the tribunal or anything formal. People here overthink so much about this topic.
    - squeegmeister 22d ago
      Because the owner of said tool is a white nationalist
      - frumplestlatz 22d ago
        I think you’ve confused HN for BlueSky.
      - tempaccountabcd 22d ago
        [dead]
alt227 21d ago
....in your own opinion.
- amelius 21d ago
  Everything here is "in your own opinion". No need to be explicit about it.
amelius 21d ago
Governments in the EU, that's actually the worst group. Shows how addicted politicians are to attention.
- eythian 20d ago
  They can definitely do better, for example the Dutch government runs its own Mastodon instance: https://social.overheid.nl/overview https://social.overheid.nl/overview The slogan being "Messages from the government. For everyone."

darkwi11ow 22d ago

Another "victory" for the freedom of information.

_giorgio_ 22d ago

[flagged]

lapkaaaa 22d ago
They don't want to make it irrevelant, it's only readonly so you can't post. Not everyone wants to create a xitter account just to find 1-2 posts
danlitt 22d ago
Because removing public content from the internet for profit is wrong and shouldn't be allowed. One man, or one company, should not be in charge of the free speech of half a billion people.
- earth-tattoo 22d ago
  Ok, let's start a petition to remove the restrictions put on you to make a free public competitor. Oh wait, there are none. Nobody is stopping you!
  - danlitt 22d ago
    Why do you think having a free public competitor would solve the problem? Did you think about the problem at all before posting this?
tomlockwood 22d ago
I don't want to log on to his stupid ragebait website. I hate him for entirely different reasons to the usability of a shit website. Problem?
aucisson_masque 22d ago
Third party client websites have existed for a long time. It’s just about freedom.

lapkaaaa 22d ago

Why would anyone use any xitter service voluntarily at this point

user43928 22d ago
The service works just fine and it is a decent way to get the latest news. For example, rumors about latest AI developments are available there, but not here on HN. X also works well for media, which on HN you can only see after navigating to an external website. Many comment sections are rough, but usually not worth visiting apart from the top comments anyway. I don't like that Ads are hard to distinguish from regular posts. I believe the main reason for not using X is a political boycott. Many disagree politically, or don't entertain certain delusions about Musk that are popular with progressives.
- Freedumbs 22d ago
  Or get this: you could read news if that's what you're interested in. Social media isn't news. It's entertainment.
  - user43928 22d ago
    I'd be more interested in your concrete alternative recommendation on where to get the rumors/insider news about AI rather than your opinion on how I should use social media.
    - Freedumbs 22d ago
      If you're interested in being entertained, continue to consume. If you want to learn about science, setup a system to consume Arxiv.
  - TiredOfLife 22d ago
    > Social media isn't news What is? TV, Radio, Newspapers, Town square, are all entertainment

pogue 22d ago

Any details about what's going on? Is Nitter/their Github still up?

krembo 22d ago

Not a popular question here, but what's the difference between xcancel or archive.org, and torrents and other pirate services alike? (except twitter is user content, yet per their tos xcancel is still piracy)

draw_down 22d ago
[dead]
JuniperMesos 22d ago
Torrents can be used to spread information that is in the public domain or licensed freely, just as much as they can be used to spread copyrighted information. Obviously most of what people actually use torrents for is pirating copyrighted media against the wishes of the copyright-holders, but that's not inherent to the protocol. Nitter instances by contrast are specific software intended to view information on a specific proprietary social media website in ways the owners of that website don't want them to. It's a question for lawyers if X declaring this to be a type of copyright violation will hold up in court, but X is also actively trying to block Nitter instances from accessing the site at all, which is a technological rather than legal mechanism.

simondotau 22d ago

If you don’t like X, I don’t understand why anyone would use a service like XCancel, which effectively helps maintain the cultural relevance of X. On a practical level, I’m also wondering what consistent legal standard people want when it comes to things like terms of service and individuals' copyright. It's unworkable to maintain one rule for the awesome people we might like and and another rule for the horrible despots we might not like.

somedude895 22d ago
[flagged]
- MPSimmons 22d ago
  It seems intellectually dishonest to blanket-label any principled stance that you disagree with as "virtue signaling".
  - pickleRick243 22d ago
    I think the claim is that the principled stance would be to ignore all X content.
    - ceejayoz 22d ago
      Which is just the "yet you participate in society" meme again.
      - bbg2401 22d ago
        No, it's not. Don't be so intellectually lazy. The author of the comment higher up is describing a person who is boycotting X because they are strongly against its stewardship and moderation but regardless continues to find ways to indulge themselves in the content produced by users of X, for other users of X. How else should we describe the position held? It's clearly not entirely principled and veers directly into performative action (i.e. virtue signalling). I admit I'm not nor have been a Twitter/X user so am able to look at the situation without a sense of entitlement or attachment.

aucisson_masque 22d ago

What was the Chinese alternative ? At this point I’m just going to use that instead, lawyers won’t be able to take that down.

Markoff 22d ago
I think you mean https://twitterwebviewer.com/en https://twitterwebviewer.com/en which was also taken down anyway I ditched xcancel for redirectors like https://twit.0r.cx/ https://twit.0r.cx/ or https://xxcancel.com https://xxcancel.com
- aucisson_masque 19d ago
  Well that was fast. People were expecting it to be immune to Elon musk lawyer but I guess it wasn’t at all.

throwa356262 22d ago

Proposal: Set up a mastodon account that mirrors your (or someone elses) X account. This way people who want can continue using X, and other people can read & refer to their posts without needing to log into X.

morningsam 22d ago
I've been wondering why ~everyone hasn't already been doing this, so my guess is that Twitter's API doesn't allow it.
- abletonlive 22d ago
  Because mastadon is not relevant to anybody but the people on HN. It's 2026, I really can't believe HN is still stuck on mastadon.
- Nemo_bis 21d ago
  Yes, it's because of the XTwitter API changes (mostly between February 2023 and February 2024). People have been crossposting to Mastodon and the fediverse for many years. In the old days you would do it with a desktop or mobile client for Twitter and Identi.ca. In the 2020s there were many server-side crossposters like moa.party. https://wiert.me/2025/05/19/moa-link-your-mastodon-account-to-twitter-with-moa-bridge/ https://wiert.me/2025/05/19/moa-link-your-mastodon-account-t... Nowadays such clients are effectively impossible, because the XTwitter API pricing is designed for business users only. Some bigger services can afford to pay for the privilege to post via the API (e.g. Buffer I think?), which can work for corporate communications. The prices are such that often it's cheaper to pay a person to do the crossposting manually and do it properly while at it.

mitxela 22d ago

There are now about 10 different people running them, and you can also run your own. https://status.d420.de/ https://status.d420.de/ The browser extension "Libredirect" will transparently redirect you to a working one or one of your choice.

solarkraft 22d ago

So X is down again. Oh well.

chinathrow 22d ago

Has anyone ever succeeded going up against Elon legally?

okeuro49 22d ago

I wish X would allow browsing threads, which is the only reason I use xcancel. I wouldn't even mind seeing advertisements. I just don't want to have an X account.

ArtTimeInvestor 22d ago

When I read this, the Arweave project [1] comes to mind. Isn't this the exact use case it was built for, preservation of news data in a way that it cannot be tampered with and so that it is kept accessible for everyone forever? [1] https://arweave.org/ https://arweave.org/

ocd 22d ago

I don't see how any government or business (especially the former) can justify using X at this point when it doesn't serve the public interest or the interest of customers who deserve at least some choice. It's as unreasonable for them as using Instagram or a dating app for something intended for broad reach and accessibility. I don't particularly like Bluesky, but it's publicly readable and has RSS. Any real solution would be protocol or standard instead of yet another closed service, though. For now, I see Nitter and XCancel as a temporary fix until people abandon it for whatever practical, economic, or political reason(s) they may have.

mitxela 22d ago
The reason is simple: they were using Twitter when it was publicly readable and had RSS, and they have no selfish reason to stop. (Selfless reasons don't count, everybody is selfish)
- timthelion 21d ago
  Well if they want their posts to be readable they do have a selfish reason.
cebert 22d ago
You go where your people are. I think it’s very reasonable to post updates on Facebook and X.
trekz 22d ago
> I don't see how any government or business (especially the former) can justify using X at this point Open RSS wrote about exactly this a couple weeks ago [1]. Bluesky being publicly readable with RSS is an improvement. But government offices should be publishing on their own RSS feeds, and the platforms should be secondary, not the other way around. The amount of policy that gets announced on social media without even a mention on their own website is bizarre. Why isn't posting their content off platform legally required at this point? [1] https://openrss.org/blog/government-updates-belong-in-an-open-feed https://openrss.org/blog/government-updates-belong-in-an-ope...
22d ago

fivetomidnight 22d ago

[dead]

dpmartinez 22d ago

Are there other instances available? X can't ban them all. I wish legal issues wouldn’t exist for this project and X would stop attacking projects that provide information for free. Privacy is important more than ever as many of us don't want to login into X.

deleted 22d ago
[deleted]
unfocso 22d ago
There's plenty of other instances running on nitter, some secret/invite only (and as such more chance to fly under the radar). The code is open source: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter albeit X DMCA'd the repo.
- amiga386 22d ago
  > X DMCA'd the repo. No they didn't, or you'd see the text "Repository unavailable due to DMCA takedown." and wouldn't have access to the repo at all. Instead you have full access to it, its author having merely archived it out of caution. No reference to nitter in https://github.com/github/dmca/ https://github.com/github/dmca/
  - embedding-shape 22d ago
    Seems you're right. They have done this in the past though, so wouldn't exactly be a surprise. Here is what the "free speech" platform have censored previously on GitHub: > X Corp. employs various technical protection measures to control access to its copyrighted works, including those at issue here (API schemas and platform content): e.g., official X Corp. API key/OAuth authentication, rate-limiting mechanisms, proprietary behavioral pattern detection, TLS fingerprint validation, and x-clienttransaction-id checks. The repository referenced above appears specifically designed to circumvent these measures using browser cookies, curl_cffi TLS impersonation, fake headers, request jitter, and reverse-engineered GraphQL queries. https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/b2c88bad7dd771dc7d1842ff81529b86c701f296/2026/03/2026-03-27-x-corp.md https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/b2c88bad7dd771dc7d1842ff...

esarbe 22d ago

https://status.d420.de/ https://status.d420.de/

goda90 22d ago

> You can find the content you were looking for on the original website *if you log in to an account A big reason many people use Nitter instances is that X has become very locked down for unauthenticated users.

yoz-y 22d ago

Web version of Twitter has become unusable now. So much so that I wonder why they still keep it.

rob74 22d ago
So they can try to nag you into signing up and installing the app? Which doesn't work in 99.9% of cases, but try telling that to your boss if his name is Elon Musk...
- freedomben 22d ago
  Sadly, the success rate is significantly better than 0.1%. as a broad strategy, it clearly works. I wish it didn't, but there is a reason why all these companies do it.
uurrnn 22d ago
So that you can be linked to it and told to make an account.
- IshKebab 22d ago
  It did that long before Elon took over. He's made it worse, sure. But it was never really usable at any point.
macNchz 22d ago
For years Twitter stood out among major platforms for having an actually-usable mobile web interface that seemed to be a first-class citizen / wasn’t intentionally degraded to force you into the app, and didn’t even nag you about it. Unsurprising they’ve since ruined it.
- weberer 22d ago
  I'm calling bullshit. Twitter was always hostile to logged-out users. You could say "Well technically I was talking about 2006 before it got big" so I'll just say it was just as bad 10 years ago as it is today.

jmclnx 22d ago

This to me is a big issue. You have politicians, government entities and other public institutions posting to twitter, but to access we need to log in. There needs to be a free, non-ad, non-login environment people can use to access this information posted by public entities. This comment also applies to facebook too, which I think is even worse than twitter.

DaedalusII 22d ago
but how to do that without protecting the content from enemy LLM companies scraping?
- jasonlotito 22d ago
  On the off chance someone thinks this is serious, being locked behind a login doesn't prevent your site from being scraped.
  - amiga386 22d ago
    Indeed, the shitter authors recommended you buy a bundle of Twitter accounts with 2FA details when setting up your own instance, to avoid getting rate-limited. There are millions of accounts for sale, roughly $0.10 per account. https://hstockplus.com/accounts/twitter-x-accounts?sortBy=price-low https://hstockplus.com/accounts/twitter-x-accounts?sortBy=pr...
    - zImPatrick 22d ago
      This wasn‘t recommended officially by the authors, right? I saw it on someone‘s codeberg fork but not on the official repo
      - amiga386 22d ago
        Sure, let's say shitter's authors: https://codeberg.org/mv12star/shitter/wiki/Creating-session-tokens https://codeberg.org/mv12star/shitter/wiki/Creating-session-...

pamcake 22d ago

Of more concern, the Nitter github repository was permanently archived a couple of days ago. https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter

zImPatrick 22d ago
Zedeus said "it's hopefully temporary, but it'll remain that way until further notice." in the matrix room
latexr 22d ago
> permanently archived Why do you say it’s permanent? Unarchiving a GitHub repository is reversible, and just as easy as archiving it.
Leonard_of_Q 22d ago
On that same page: UPDATE: Following legal advice, the Nitter project will continue. More details will be announced soon.
- petcat 22d ago
  > Following legal advice It's impossible to know what this "legal advice" was, but 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.
  - graemep 22d ago
    I imagine it will be hosted in jurisdictions other than the US.
  - advisedwang 22d ago
    In cases like these, companies often try to go after the upstream project, not just operators. The law gives them lots of tools for this: the CFAA has a conspiracy provision; The DMCA has a provision against making software for circumventing copyright; Trademark law might make the name nitter or xcancel illegal; and finally even if the claims are weak the litigation itself is an enormous burden

accountrequired 22d ago

i just want to unmute the video and full screen it without logging in. i click twitter link and it is muted.

rob74 22d ago

Maybe instead of trying to get rid of services that provide a more convenient access to X to non-logged-in users, they should realize that there is a real market behind these services - users that will likely never sign up to X, but who want to read/watch some content without the incessant nagging and limitations that X subjects non-logged-in users to?

pluc 22d ago
Reddit says hello
- forestingfisher 22d ago
  And Reddit has also started blocking signed out users in my region.
  - immibis2 22d ago
    And demanding ID!
  - vova_hn2 22d ago
    They are now telling me that I need an account to use old.reddit.com (the only usable version of Reddit UI). Needless to say, I have stopped visiting Reddit completely.
    - boston_clone 22d ago
      Perhaps more frustratingly, if you bite the bullet and browse the "new" version on your mobile browser, the page will eventually become non-responsive and have ~60% of your screen covered by a bottom banner that prompts you to download their app to continue. It's like they are actively trying to kill their userbase.
      - immibis2 22d ago
        Like most big tech companies now, they are actively trying to kill their non-contributing userbase, where contributing means viewing an ad for every second post. They know that perhaps 5% of the non-contributing userbase they kill will become contributing userbase, while the other 95% will just leave, and this trade seems good to them.

p-o 22d ago

Free speech absolutist, btw.

mbmbn 22d ago
Can you point the way where Free Speech is being countered here?
arrowsmith 22d ago
What does proxying someone else's content have to do with free speech?
- Forgeties79 22d ago
  You have to admit, the “free speech” shield-wielding megalomaniac working so hard to keep people from freely accessing info isn’t exactly great optics.
  - freedomben 22d ago
    I'm very much on the side of xcancel and nitter on this one, but I do think it's fair to point out that Twitter is free of monetary charge. It's not free in the sense that you do have to provide some personal information and data to them in exchange for that free account, but it isn't a huge roadblock for most people, however annoying it may be. Now that said, I sure hope Elon will pivot this and make these services unnecessary. I'm not holding my breath though.
    - angoragoats 22d ago
      The phrase "free speech" does not typically mean "free as in beer," rather it means "free as in freedom," so in this case you're conflating the two meanings of "free" in English. The fact that Twitter is login-gated makes it objectively less free as in freedom.
      - freedomben 22d ago

zqwt3k 22d ago

Thanks Elon, now we know that scraping is illegal! Very good to clarify that for future proceedings against the AI thieves.

wahnfrieden 22d ago
It’s the rehosting of the content not the scraping Edit: not a moral stance
- zqwt3k 22d ago
  That is what all LLMs could do in 2023, verbatim, before they trained it out of them in order to keep up the pretense that there is no plagiarism. Now they all obfuscate the original or refuse to cite.
- echelon 22d ago
  Grok can do that if you give it an HN thread or other websites.
- jm4 22d ago
  I love how the content belongs to them when someone else reposts it but it belongs to the user if the content is illegal. Such a double standard with these social media and AI companies. Why do we put up with it?
  - embedding-shape 22d ago
    > Why do we put up with it? You let it happen. Once people stop letting it happen, it'll stop. But social media is apparently the new "opium of the masses" so here we are and no one wants to do anything.
    - flaburgan 22d ago
      I actually do want to do something. I started to scrape Twitter to make it freely available. The web should stay open.

deleted 22d ago

[deleted]

newscracker 22d ago

This may be a situation where revealing a solution may end up harming it. For those who use iOS and other Apple OSes, I learned of this recently released free Safari extension called Litterbox that allows looking at one post on x.com. [1]: https://andadinosaur.com/launch-litterbox https://andadinosaur.com/launch-litterbox

Forgeties79 22d ago
People really need to just not visit it. You don’t need to browse Twitter to be on top of current events. Anything posted there will be available elsewhere within minutes (and hopefully it will have been vetted somewhat)
- rolymath 22d ago
  [flagged]
  - PxldLtd 22d ago
    I don't use twitter but it feels like a platform for bothering terminally-online celebrities
- stingraycharles 22d ago
  Yeah as long as the audience is there, people will keep posting on Twitter.
- BizarreByte 22d ago
  Who uses twitter for current events? I’m there for extremely niche hobby related posts.
  - tommica 22d ago
    Curious, what is the hobby?
- larsmaxfield 22d ago

pino83 22d ago

There is no reason for xcancel to exist. Either you cancel X. Meaning: NOT consuming X content. Or you just visit X.com. Right? Right?

bananaflag 22d ago
[flagged]
- pino83 22d ago
  Well, there's X.com for that.
embedding-shape 22d ago
> There is no reason for xcancel to exist A bit like your comment. It's possible that other people you want to read, are using a platform you don't want to use. Have this perhaps never happened to you, even once?
- pino83 22d ago
  A good idea would be: Make a decision. A trade-off. Either these people are important enough to you, and you don't disfavor the platform soo much. Then visit that platform. Or you dislike the platform so much that you even wonder why these people are there. You definitely don't want to be in contact with the platform. If so, then give up these people. There's no free lunch, right? You also (typically) cannot buy steak, but then somehow not pay the money by showing some fake credit card. That would typically involve crime, right? Make decisions, guys!!! Make decisions! Your cat and mouse games are embarrassing... And that doesn't get better in any way just by downvoting me. ;) ;) ;)
  - immibis2 22d ago
    One possible decision is to use a deshittifying front-end, like Nitter.
    - 22d ago

small_model 22d ago

[flagged]

yawpitch 22d ago
Anything that takes money away from narcoleptic, right wing [self]-abusers of the COA^1 is a net good for humanity. ^1: Concept of Acronyms
kijashdkujdfhas 22d ago
> It takes away earnings from X users Oh no! How awful! So terrible! People who produce nothing of value might earn slightly less! Moving on to more pressing matters...

ImJamal 22d ago

It just feels like every social media site is login-walling public posts. I can't think of a major social media site (reddit, Instagram, FB, Twitter, etc) that doesn't do this to varying degrees. I can only think of minor sites (bluesky, truth social, etc) that allow access. It feels like an end of an era.

swed420 22d ago
Reddit is still viewable, though they did finally axe "old" reddit for those not logged in. But at least reddit still has lots of nitter-style mirrors as an alternative.
- ImJamal 22d ago
  New reddit was getting login popups for a while as well. From my rudimentary checks it varied from subreddit to subreddit.

thesdev 22d ago

https://nitter.click https://nitter.click still works right as rain, and so do many other Nitter instances.

999900000999 22d ago

Makes sense, the legal system is pay to play. Bluesky is here anyway. Hell, you’re arguably on a Twitter alternative right now.

ACCount39 22d ago

Xitter can't make a web UI that's actually usable to save their lives - so they're going after the one platform that does with lawfare. Despicable behavior.

immibis2 22d ago
It's not that they can't. They don't want to. The reasons it is unusable are the things that make them so much money. If they made a usable one they'd lose even more money.

rob 22d ago

IMO, if you hate Elon so much, you shouldn't be visiting his website. You look very odd and silly if you still want to engage with it and just use a different UI layer (i.e., "XCancel", "Nitter".) If they want you to have an account to read the post and you want to read the post, create an account, log in, and move on. If you don't want to do that, nobody is forcing you to view a public website. There's alternatives like "Bluesky" out there that might be good for you.

JeremyNT 22d ago
My municipality, and many other governmental entities, post official updates to x.com
- 8note 22d ago
  have you asked them to switch or to post to many places at once?
protoster 22d ago
I don't want to use "X", I want to read updates from orgs and people who, unfortunately, don't post them elsewhere.
somehnguy 22d ago
I don't visit his website. That's the whole point.
arijun 22d ago
I don't want to be tracked by x.com, but still want to be able to read links people send me to tweets. It's pretty reductive to say that people are using it because they "hate Elon so much," or even that they "want to engage with it.'
sortoflog 22d ago
> You look very odd and silly if you still want to engage with it and just use a different UI layer (i.e., "XCancel", "Nitter".) Why? The site still hosts plenty of content worth seeing. Is it really so silly to do it via a better UI, or to not want an account?

Grimeton 22d ago

Their browser verification never made it into the same room as my browser anyway...

trey-jones 22d ago

Regardless of the legality of the service: I always use xcancel instead of X. I don't have a twitter account and I don't want to sign in. I just occasionally want to read what some people had to say about something. Even this is usually a mistake. It's probably better taken as entertainment. My point is: companies stop making your product suck, and people won't have a reason to try and fix it for you.

WarmWash 22d ago
The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free and have no form of tracking or ads, or if it does have ads/tracking, that you are trivially capable of blocking them while still totally enjoying the service/product. xcancel, archive, whatever are all tools almost solely meant to access monetized content without having to contribute to the monetize part. Then those companies are told they "suck" when they don't like it. Most importantly, the competitors that the internet endlessly cries for to show up to dethrone these giants, see what is going on and say "lol, nope".
- swed420 22d ago
  > The problem companies have is that "doesn't suck" generally means "it's free with no ads". There's no reason you can't abolish login walls while still serving ads. > The internet has this innate expectation that everything digital be totally free Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. This vision is ripe for the picking: https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/ https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/
  - WarmWash 22d ago
    >Capital interests have this innate expectation that everything must be profitable. What rubs me the wrong way about statements like this, is that it is almost always said by people who totally miss that they are advocating for things that are personally profitable for them. A website that allows you to skirt paywalls, is immensely profitable to the end user. That same end user, who detests the idea of having to spend money, then complains loudly that corporations just want their money. And it is completely lost on them they are playing the exact same game as corporations. The actual break from "corporate profits" is to not engage with the corporations products at all. But that overwhelming is not what we see. Instead it is just two entities fighting over money, because they both have the same root motivation to maximize money.

mw888 22d ago

So are you, dear reader, for intellectual property laws or not. I see a lot of "anti-this" sentiment confused with "anti-AI [data collection]." The consistent view is one regarding IP in general - not reverse engineering your morals based on the case.

arijun 22d ago
I do take your point, that someone against using twitter for training data in AI who then uses a service that might be violating copyright seems hypocritical. But first of all, the people voicing these opinions may not be the same person, despite commenting on the same website. But more directly addressing your point, I do think you could easily find a consistent moral stance that thinks taking tweets to train AI is worse than republishing those same tweets on a website. An argument can be made that the person writing those tweets wants to be heard, so republishing the tweet is in line with (your best guess of) what they want. Whereas consumption of the tweet for AI training is less likely to be consistent with the wants of the original author.
- mw888 18d ago
  That's the type of moral stance which doesn't encode well into reality. I don't even agree with it, but it is surely consistent enough from your end. The real issue is that it crosses so many practical legal boundaries, mainly around intent that it will never survive as representative of your actual morals—through the grinder that is the modern legal system.

bithammerthunde 22d ago

I think XCancel should use their momentum and set up their own social media network, instead of scrapping the domain.

dismalaf 22d ago
Then it'll just be another Bluesky...
- abirch 22d ago
  or mastodon...
Tepix 21d ago
Suggestion: Every time someone uses nitter, the post in question is copied over to Mastodon and subsequent accesses just redirect to the copied post. That way you can interact with the copy on Mastodon.

VCFundedGenYer 22d ago

As a reminder - get off Twitter and get onto Mastodon (Bluesky is dead to rights). Those of you addicted to what was formerly Twitter need to move on.

vova_hn2 22d ago

Just by googling "twitter api" I am able to find an "unofficial API" (scraped, obviously), that gives you access to tweets for around $0.15/1k tweets. Which is expensive if you want to, let's say, train a model, but super cheap for a casual user. A nice UI around such API probably can be one-shotted with modern LLM-coding models and tools. Or, you can go the hard way and vibecode something around buying twitter accounts (just several bucks per each) and proxies. What I'm trying to say, that with modern tools it is incredibly easy to bypass the restrictions on reading twitter without an account, even if they manage to take down all the nitter instances, try to make finding nitter source code harder etc.

wraptile 22d ago
You can scrape twitter pretty easily yourself with an account (lots of free code on github) but that's the thing - you need an account which is legally complicated but for your own personal use you can just create a dummy account and you'll never be blocked.
- vova_hn2 22d ago
  Don't they require a phone number? Even if they don't, they probably require email. I don't really want to give them my main email and even less - phone number. So, buying an account seems like less of a hassle, than figuring out where to get a temporary email.
  - wraptile 22d ago
    These are all available for couple of cents per email/phone number. I don't want to advertise these services directly but they work very well and you can find them with keywords like "SMS otp code service"
  - immibis2 22d ago
    They make it really hard to get an account, no matter how legit you are, but if you eventually get one, you can plug it into your own private Nitter instance.
- 21d ago

nunez 22d ago

it's going to be a cat and mouse game for as long as X can legally afford to keep it going (i.e. til the heat death of the universe) regardless, no matter how hard elon turns the screws on their customers, people will continue to use twitter/X because "that's where everyone is" and places like HN will continue to allow these links because "that's where the news is" despite healthier alternatives like the Mastodon network and Bluesky existing. whatever. i've redirected x to 0.0.0.0 when the first warning shot was fired and called it a day. rocks are looking like a great place to live under right about now anyway.

blfr 22d ago
I use Twitter daily and haven't noticed any screws. How is Elon supposedly turning them?
- joquarky 22d ago
  Don't sea lion.
  - nailer 21d ago
    "Sea lioning" seems to be asking for proof of what what stated.

Aerocatia 22d ago

I have been suspended from Ex-Twitter for months for "inauthentic behavior" despite only ever just using the site normally. I would very much like to have nothing to do with this site anymore, but unfortunately many people and organizations from before Elon took it over still post there and I can't make them all move to another site (and the same site for that matter), so here we are.

ralfd 22d ago
Come on, be honest, what did you do?
- captainbadass33 22d ago
  dared to use twitter with only an anonymous email is my guess. musk demands you phone and biometrics
  - declan_roberts 22d ago
    Phone number requirement was thankfully removed some time after Musk took over.
    - mitxela 21d ago
      Right now you need either a phone number or an actual phone (hardware ID) plus email
      - declan_roberts 21d ago
        Exactly. A passcode and email is significantly more privacy-forward than a phone number. A leaked passcode hash is meaningless on the internet and can't be used to triangulate you.
  - cindyllm 22d ago
    [dead]
- 22d ago

boomboomsubban 22d ago

What reason could there be that they can't share details?

AntonyGarand 22d ago
Pending legal advice I would assume
immibis2 22d ago
You never share information about a lawsuit unless a lawyer says you can. I'm not sure why - I presume it's because it might help the other side.

seatac76 22d ago

Man the RSS feeds are busted too now :/

zem 22d ago

I wonder if part of the lawsuit required them to link to twitter - it doesn't seem like a very on-brand thing to do.

DavCreator 22d ago

https://xxcancel.com https://xxcancel.com is up and redirecting to working Nitter instances.

philip-b 22d ago
Is there a way to make Firefox autoredirect to that?
- tommica 22d ago
  Probably with some userscript?
- pelzatessa 22d ago
  Libredirect does exactly that: https://github.com/libredirect/browser_extension https://github.com/libredirect/browser_extension
- er0k 22d ago
  https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ Include pattern: ^https?://x.com/(.*) Redirect to: https://xxcancel.com/$1
- n_plus_1_acc 21d ago
  uBlock Origin can do it, no need for something else https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/discussions/2666#discussioncomment-15887996 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/discussions/26...
gavinhungry 21d ago
I put this together this morning: https://github.com/gavinhungry/nitter-bitter https://github.com/gavinhungry/nitter-bitter You can self-host it anywhere, and use the aforementioned Redirector [1] extension: ^https://(?:twitter|x)\.com/(.*) https://nitter.example.tld/$1 [1] https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/
chr15m 21d ago
Also twiiit.com

redbell 22d ago

> You can find the content you were looking for on the original website: > Continue to X This was hard to swallow for me! Why you are redirecting to X, which is the exact opposite of what you are offering?! Don't get me wrong, I use XCancel and Nitter regularly an I like them, it just hits hard!

captainbadass33 22d ago

[dead]

captainbadass33 22d ago

[flagged]

butlike 22d ago

The MOMENT xcancel gets shut down, someone should sue the president for putting official communication on a closed platform.

xyst 22d ago
Then take ownership lil bro. Any of those scumbag lawyers will be happy to take your money to do whatever you want.
mococa 22d ago
the president? I think all presidents does the same.
jayknight 22d ago
Is he there again? I thought he did everything on his own service, whatever it's called.

sourcecodeplz 22d ago

wtf the guy payed what 40billion for this website? yes, he can enforce whatever ToS he wants .

phforms 22d ago

I know it’s hard for some people (for understandable reasons), but at some point we have to ignore the X site completely and make politicians and public services/institutions aware that some people do not have or want access to the site. That is the only way anything might change someday. Maybe I’m just being naive here, but what else can you do? xcancel was amazing and I hope they can continue in some way. But since I have no actual need to go to the X site, I choose to completely ignore it, regardless of who posts what there. Most important things will be in the news anyway or you just pick it up from talking to other people.

demo4567 22d ago
[flagged]
- tommica 22d ago
  Holy buzzword-salad, Batman! In any case X is a pretty decent place, as long as you mute the topics that get annoying. But the Algorithm is quite good at serving you what you engage with.
  - bigyabai 22d ago
    > as long as you mute the topics that get annoying People have been saying this since the Dorsey days, they were wrong back then and they're still wrong today.
- gfdd 22d ago
  [dead]
asdff 22d ago
I don't understand who all these people are who keep saying 'but I need twitter for my local politicians.' Like really? I have not followed any local politicians or authorities twitter and I still get relevant information. Believe it or not, which you might not if all you do is parrot these comments and I have seen this very comment line of thinking parroted for YEARS about twitter, most people do not follow the city hall twitter if they even have a twitter, and they get by fine. I mean people are citing they need to follow their utility. Are you kidding me? Your utility will post a highly localized service outage that might only affect 1 block of a city or less to their world facing twitter feed? And not simply alert customers via their phone on file as they've done for me forever?

CodeWriter23 22d ago

Good: Insta requiring login Facebook requiring login Bad: X requiring login

notthemessiah 21d ago
Good: The Open Web Bad: Insta requiring login Facebook requiring login Xitter requiring login

outside1234 22d ago

Why are people still using X? I mean seriously people, move on and stop using this closed ecosystem that is propaganda around elections.

aaroninsf 22d ago

Surprised there are still people who think the issue with "X" is that it is a bad product. It is a bad product, and it is pathological in the way all degraded social media platforms are bad. But it's also worse than those others, in well documented ways; and it's long past time anyone with integrity found alternatives. The failure of the "AI" industry to do so is an indictment and serious red flag.

ck2 22d ago

every official government entity needs to get off X every local, state and federal entity nothing published there can be read logged out or archived has to be violating law if not best practices

parasti 22d ago

Why even keep using zombie Twitter? I used to scroll Twitter a lot but deleted my account back when. Literally any other social network seems more appealing these days, and not by a small margin.

joshcsimmons 22d ago

Good. X is the public square. The algorithm is superior to any other social media site out there right now. They are right to charge for the API and right to shut down impostor sites. What did they say around 2020? If you don't like it - BUILD YOUR OWN.

worik 22d ago
> X is the public square > They are right to charge for the API I might just leave that there...

deleted 22d ago

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deleted 22d ago

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elAhmo 22d ago

This is Mr. comedy is legal and free speech, and public town square, right? I understand that he is a vile POS, but I don't understand people supporting him and using his products.

asadm 22d ago

I don't really get the hate for X btw. What kind of kool-aid is everyone on? I seem to be able to post/access pro-Palestinian content there easily, no other platform lets me do that. It has also been great for my project and find the right community from scratch.

nixosbestos 21d ago

Fuck X, and this place while we're at it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403658 Cost me $500 (to a good charity, oh well) and guess what, I was fucking right. I have subby-tendancies but some of you put me to shame. Me personally? I don't like the taste of rubber. lol, go try to just even sign up for a new X account and let me know how that goes. god damn sycophancy.

squirreljak 21d ago

goyimx.com is still working fine thankfully

_kst_ 21d ago

Neither this post nor the linked site explain what XCancel is/was. Since I wasn't familiar with XCancel, an announcement that it's suspended is not particularly informative. Apparently XCancel is an instance of Nitter. According to Wikipedia, "Nitter is designed to allow access to X without tracking, advertisements, or the need for an account. It only supports browsing, and cannot be used to sign in or interact with the X community." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitter

mitxela 21d ago
Example: https://nitter.kareem.one/google https://nitter.kareem.one/google

maxlin 21d ago

What did they expect. Just use the site, people

platevoltage 21d ago
Or just not.
SahAssar 21d ago
If the site didn't require login, sure. Now it'll be "Just don't use the site and encourage anyone else to stay away"

clcaev 21d ago

What is the core value proposition of twitter? It seems simple, short form informations delivery (eg “follow me on twitter”) is central. The “likes”, retweets, and follower counts are secondary but perhaps important metrics that drive engagement. A simple link plus QR for paper is needed. Moderation seems a challenge. Are there simpler alternatives to mastodon? is federation possible? Why is RSS not used for this?

cakeface 21d ago
Bluesky strikes a balance between the federated Mastodon and the Twitter walled garden.
- miladyincontrol 21d ago
  I'm not so sure about that. Bluesky by large migrated from twitter aiming to escape the likes of Elon's politics, but they still brought over some of the most toxic cancel/brigade culture that twitter had to offer. Not suggesting all of bluesky is bad, but it sure ain't the most pleasant crowd in it's own right either.
  - notthemessiah 21d ago
    Bluesky, like Mastodon, is built on an open network on open source code. Run your own data server and moderation services that cater to your needs. Many are already doing it: Northsky, Eurosky, Blacksky, etc. If you want to live in a safe space isolated from the mainnet and its allegedly toxic users, you can do that too: Roundabout is built on ATProto but run on its own network, also Truth Social and Threads are forked versions of Mastodon but federated with nobody (Threads used to have opt-in Mastodon federation before Facebook decided they no longer want users to be able to do that).
SwellJoe 21d ago
Mastodon isn't all that complicated. But, obviously it's not where people went when people fled Xitter, by and large. The funny people and journalists mostly went to Bluesky and the normal people mostly went to Threads because they already had an Instagram account. The Nazis and child pornographers and the people who were comfortable being around Nazis and child pornographers remained on Xitter. But, a few nerds went to the fediverse and we are generally having a nice time there. RSS is not a read-write medium. You can't realistically carry on a semi-realtime conversation over RSS.

armanckeser 21d ago

I wrote about how to redirect to nitter instances on any platform a month ago [1], and a few days later we had the cease and desist. Fortunately, you can redirect to twiiit.com and that will find a working instance for you. [1] https://armanckeser.com/writing/redirecting-x-com https://armanckeser.com/writing/redirecting-x-com

rmarable 21d ago

X is a cesspool, hence the existence of XCancel.

daorhe2272 21d ago

I live a happy, fulfilling live without having an account in X or reading tweets from third party sites. Just saying...

rmarable 21d ago
This is the way.

kingkandu 21d ago

Twitter is a weird one because I absolutely hate using it and as someone who's built many feeds I can see how they're trying to farm engagement at the cost of their user's health. But it is simultaneously the best place to get real time information and after reddit the best place to find human/bot generated content so I do still need access to the data. Trusting Zuck to fill the gap with Threads is a moron's endeavour and Mastadon is too fragmented we need a centralized good actor to fix this.

p0w3n3d 21d ago

I don't want to sound like a geezer but backdays twitter was a web page, like hacker news. Now it's an app, that wouldn't work as a page in phone's browser. And installing an app is basically installing a spy nowadays

harrouet 21d ago

I used to be a heavy Twitter user. I quit when it started to become a dump area for fascist rhetoric. I guess we're seeing Musk-defending-freedom-of-speech in action.

gigatexal 21d ago

I would fund monthly any service that allows us to view and follow and document and track what happens on Twitter without having to have an account and thereby inflate Elon’s ego and numbers.

freefaler 21d ago

The same what reddit did, "this is our content" we'll try to milk it to the tilt. I think this is akin to a reverse "tragedy of commons" but for user generated content verticals. It makes economic sense for them to try to lock it and they will try to lock it unless there is a market force that prevents that. Sadly, market forces in these markets are few and far between. Cory Doctorow argues that the antidote to walled platforms is to restore the legal and technical right to adversarial interoperability. Users and developers should have the legal freedom to reverse-engineer APIs, build scrapers, create cross-platform bridges, and deploy third-party readers without facing lawsuits under anti-hacking statutes like the CFAA or DMCA Section 1201.

alex1138 21d ago
Once again, yet another legitimate comment that was [dead] that I had to 'vouch' for. HN either has broken filters (understandable, combatting spam) or seriously loves censorship

prolly97 21d ago

ITT. Non-X users complaining that they can't use X. If you don't like the content on X enough to make an account, I don't see how this is a big loss. And yes I've on occasion had the same thought with TikTok - it'd be nice to see the vids that people send me, without making an account. But I'll just have to live my life without having seen that one super funny/interesting/enlightening video, or have to ask for a summary :)

Melatonic 21d ago
It's more that tons of local services (like firefighting updates) directly post their latest updates there
- iinnPP 21d ago
  Time to pressure the local place to do the right thing.
ben_w 21d ago
> If you don't like the content on X enough to make an account The content itself isn't the problem, it's the website. Other people keep linking me to X posts they want to share. The website is so bad that it (was) faster to manually change the URL even on my phone than to let the browser try to load the original. Now I ask people to share screenshots of the posts instead of sending links.
nananana9 21d ago
The primary difference of course being that not a single worthwhile thing has ever been posted on TikTok, while X is a "public space" used by politicians, governments, public figures, news agencies, et al. I'd like to see the fire department's tweet without having to sign up for X on the spot right now and do a 20 round captcha, followed by a prompt to install the app to verify my age, because suspicious activity was detected. Of course - ideally - nobody would use this platform for anything important, but given that they do, I'd like open access to it.
- 21d ago

Prydown 21d ago

Well, there goes my weekend refactoring that integration. Guess it's back to custom retry logic for us.

Sorrel47 21d ago

Was curious how long a service for cancelling things would last. Guess they cancelled themselves.

robeym 21d ago

The easiest solution is to make an empty alias account on twitter just for the purpose of accessing links. I use an email address for this. Spam@myemaildomain.com. it forwards all emails to the address right to spam, it's great! No cease and desist letters from Mr. musk , yet !

wffurr 21d ago
My only problem is that by viewing tweets with your alias account is that you're still contributing to their DAU / MAU (daily/monthly active user) count. I want the service to die; their usage numbers should go to zero.

hdhjsjja 21d ago

What I don't understand is why X does not block any access without signing in and also throttle the requests. Whats stopping them?

deleted 21d ago
[deleted]

Saline9515 21d ago

Hosting a nitter instance on a Rpi or a phone behind tailscale is trivial in the post-llm age, if anyone wants to try it.

silexia 21d ago

Good riddance. X is awesome, go direct!