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Everything is both legal and illegal until a lawsuit happens. Then it collapses depending a little bit on the facts and mostly on who has the better lawyers. I

Everything is both legal and illegal until a lawsuit happens. Then it collapses depending a little bit on the facts and mostly on who has the better lawyers. I suspect Nitter's first round with lawyers pointed out that scraping is legal, but now they have been threatened with something else than scraping - Elon claims something else the way Nitter runs is illegal, such as the use of fake accounts to circumvent an access control device (DMCA 1201).

dannyw 28d ago
At the end of the day, as an individual or a team or a company, regardless of the statue and case law, you have to perform the calculus on your monetary and legal resources versus your counterparty. Obviously ungrounded and frivolous cases tend to be easier to defend asymmetrically, but if I was X's legal team, there's no shortage of semi-plauisble claims I could throw at the wall and see what sticks. As an example of this imbalance in action, BrightData is a 'gray area' company that basically does this exact kind of scraping. They have somehow won against Meta Platforms suing them, and even got X's lawsuit against them for scraping -- identical (?) activity to XCancel -- dismissed. According to Wikipedia: > In May 2024, a federal judge dismissed the suit, ruling that Bright Data did not violate X's terms of service or copyright by scraping publicly accessible data.[24] The judge emphasized that such scraping practices are generally legal and that restricting them could lead to information monopolies But does XCancel have the resources of a company like Bright Data, that's funded and used by companies like Deloitte and Moodys?
- immibis2 28d ago
  Notice it says "terms of service or copyright". If X's lawyers have any intelligence, they'll have a reason why XCancel is not identical to Bright Data. Perhaps this time, instead of claiming it's a copyright violation, they'll claim it's wire fraud because multiple accounts are used.
- tehwebguy 28d ago
  If the name Bright Data is ringing a bell to anyone, it’s probably because they are a (the?) primary offender running the LG TV “residential proxy” (botnet)
  - immibis2 28d ago
    Which, btw, was the least bad thing about those TVs. I support residential proxying as a means to liberate public data that's being held captive by people like Elon.
  - ranger_danger 28d ago
    And the company's previous name was, ominously... Luminati.
- like_any_other 28d ago
  I wonder if anti-SLAPP laws could be used to shield nitter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation#Anti-SLAPP_laws_at_state_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
Klonoar 28d ago
Scraping is legal, but IIRC scraping authenticated contents is not. Isn't Nitter abusing account sign-in for this?
- ktm5j 28d ago
  Yes, that's what they went on to point out.
- immibis2 28d ago
  Anyone can make an account, though, and instantly access that content, so Elon doesn't really have any leg to stand on by claiming they're private. It's not the same as Cambridge Analytica scraping stuff you had to have certain privileges to see by tricking the system into granting those privileges.
  - Klonoar 28d ago
    Elon unfortunately may have a leg to stand on, because it doesn't functionally matter whether "anyone can make an account and see it". I don't believe any legal ruling to date has been fine with that distinction.
    - immibis2 28d ago
      Do you mean this will be the first legal ruling about this particular variation of the issue?
  - charcircuit 28d ago
    But if they ban the nitter operator surely you can't just bypass that ban legally by making a new X account. That there are bans and the operator has to bypass bans by pretending to be a new person I think that this makes it different. It's like a club that checks ids to ban people. I wouldn't call that club open to the general public.
    - immibis2 28d ago
      Nor would it be illegal to report outside of the club about things people said in the club.
sifar 28d ago
I like this framing, like Schrödinger's cat.

dannyw 28d ago

At the end of the day, as an individual or a team or a company, regardless of the statue and case law, you have to perform the calculus on your monetary and legal resources versus your counterparty. Obviously ungrounded and frivolous cases tend to be easier to defend asymmetrically, but if I was X's legal team, there's no shortage of semi-plauisble claims I could throw at the wall and see what sticks. As an example of this imbalance in action, BrightData is a 'gray area' company that basically does this exact kind of scraping. They have somehow won against Meta Platforms suing them, and even got X's lawsuit against them for scraping -- identical (?) activity to XCancel -- dismissed. According to Wikipedia: > In May 2024, a federal judge dismissed the suit, ruling that Bright Data did not violate X's terms of service or copyright by scraping publicly accessible data.[24] The judge emphasized that such scraping practices are generally legal and that restricting them could lead to information monopolies But does XCancel have the resources of a company like Bright Data, that's funded and used by companies like Deloitte and Moodys?

immibis2 28d ago
Notice it says "terms of service or copyright". If X's lawyers have any intelligence, they'll have a reason why XCancel is not identical to Bright Data. Perhaps this time, instead of claiming it's a copyright violation, they'll claim it's wire fraud because multiple accounts are used.
tehwebguy 28d ago
If the name Bright Data is ringing a bell to anyone, it’s probably because they are a (the?) primary offender running the LG TV “residential proxy” (botnet)
- immibis2 28d ago
  Which, btw, was the least bad thing about those TVs. I support residential proxying as a means to liberate public data that's being held captive by people like Elon.
- ranger_danger 28d ago
  And the company's previous name was, ominously... Luminati.
like_any_other 28d ago
I wonder if anti-SLAPP laws could be used to shield nitter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation#Anti-SLAPP_laws_at_state_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

Klonoar 28d ago

Scraping is legal, but IIRC scraping authenticated contents is not. Isn't Nitter abusing account sign-in for this?

ktm5j 28d ago
Yes, that's what they went on to point out.
immibis2 28d ago
Anyone can make an account, though, and instantly access that content, so Elon doesn't really have any leg to stand on by claiming they're private. It's not the same as Cambridge Analytica scraping stuff you had to have certain privileges to see by tricking the system into granting those privileges.
- Klonoar 28d ago
  Elon unfortunately may have a leg to stand on, because it doesn't functionally matter whether "anyone can make an account and see it". I don't believe any legal ruling to date has been fine with that distinction.
  - immibis2 28d ago
    Do you mean this will be the first legal ruling about this particular variation of the issue?
- charcircuit 28d ago
  But if they ban the nitter operator surely you can't just bypass that ban legally by making a new X account. That there are bans and the operator has to bypass bans by pretending to be a new person I think that this makes it different. It's like a club that checks ids to ban people. I wouldn't call that club open to the general public.
  - immibis2 28d ago
    Nor would it be illegal to report outside of the club about things people said in the club.

sifar 28d ago

I like this framing, like Schrödinger's cat.