Jack Dorsey’s decentralized messaging app Bitchat has disappeared from Apple and Google’s app stores in India following a government blocking order, escalating a months-long dispute over software designed to keep communications running even when the internet does not.
Dorsey said India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ordered Apple to remove the app under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, the country’s primary legal mechanism for blocking online content. Apple’s notice said Bitchat would remain available outside India, while access through its TestFlight beta service would also be restricted inside the country.
A Messaging App Designed to Work Without the Internet
Bitchat is unusual because it does not depend on conventional internet infrastructure. Launched in 2025, the open-source application uses Bluetooth mesh networking, allowing nearby phones to exchange encrypted messages directly and relay them between devices.
That architecture can make Bitchat particularly useful during internet outages or government-imposed shutdowns. It also makes conventional monitoring more difficult because there is no central server through which every conversation must pass.
Those characteristics have placed the app in conflict with Indian authorities before. In July, the government sought restrictions on Bitchat-related repositories hosted on GitHub, arguing that its decentralized architecture complicated lawful interception, attribution and user tracing.
The latest action goes further. Bitchat was unavailable from Google Play in India when TechCrunch checked, and its website was inaccessible through several Indian internet providers. It remains unclear whether Google and the ISPs received separate government orders.
The Legal Dispute Is Growing
The Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights organization based in New Delhi, has challenged the government’s use of Section 69A. The group argues that the provision allows authorities to block unlawful information but does not necessarily authorize banning an entire communication tool simply because of how it operates.
Another issue is transparency. Neither the blocking order nor the specific content allegedly justifying the restriction has been publicly released.
The dispute therefore reaches beyond Bitchat itself. Governments have traditionally targeted websites, posts or online services containing prohibited material. Decentralized software creates a more difficult question:can the architecture of a communication tool itself become the reason for blocking it?
Internet Shutdowns Make Bitchat Politically Significant
The timing adds another dimension. India has recently experienced youth-led demonstrations over changes to voter rolls, while authorities temporarily suspended internet services around New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar during protests.
Offline messaging tools become considerably more valuable under those conditions. During earlier protests in July, demonstrators reportedly turned to Bitchat and the privacy-focused messaging app Briar after internet access was restricted.
Interest in Bitchat surged dramatically at the time. Sensor Tower data cited by TechCrunch showed India accounted for about 85% of Bitchat’s worldwide downloads between July 17 and July 23, compared with roughly 1% during the previous 30 days.
The government has not publicly connected the latest blocking order directly to those protests, however, and the specific grounds behind the Section 69A action have not been disclosed.
Blocking Decentralized Software Is Complicated
Removing Bitchat from app stores can make it significantly harder for ordinary users to install, but it does not eliminate the underlying technology.
Because Bitchat is open source and communicates through Bluetooth rather than relying entirely on centralized infrastructure, copies already installed on devices can potentially continue operating locally. Its source code can also be distributed through channels outside traditional app stores.
That creates a recurring challenge for governments attempting to regulate decentralized technology. Centralized services provide obvious control points: servers can be blocked, domains seized and companies ordered to remove content. Peer-to-peer and mesh networks deliberately reduce those dependencies.
India’s Bitchat restrictions therefore represent more than another app-store takedown. They expose a growing tension between government control over digital communications and software architectures specifically designed to function when traditional communications infrastructure becomes unavailable.
With decentralized messaging,removing the app from a store may be relatively straightforward; removing the network itself is a much harder problem.