Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat disappears from app stores in India after government order

Bitchat, Jack Dorsey’s decentralized messaging app designed to enactment without an net connection, has disappeared from Apple and Google’s app stores successful India, months aft New Delhi archetypal sought to restrict entree to the open-source software.

Dorsey said Saturday that the Indian authorities had ordered Apple to region Bitchat from its App Store successful the country. In a announcement from Apple that Dorsey posted connected X, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued the request nether Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, the country’s superior ineligible proviso for government-ordered online blocking.

Apple’s announcement said Bitchat would stay disposable connected its App Store extracurricular India. However, entree to the app done its TestFlight beta-testing work would besides beryllium blocked successful the country.

Bitchat was besides nary longer disposable for download done Google Play successful India erstwhile TechCrunch checked connected Saturday. Bitchat’s website was besides inaccessible crossed assorted net work providers successful the country. It was not instantly wide whether Google and net work providers had besides received directions from the national government.

Apple, Google, and India’s IT ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Launched successful July past year, Bitchat uses Bluetooth mesh networking to let adjacent devices to speech encrypted messages without relying connected cellular networks, net access, oregon centralized servers.

In July 2026, Dorsey revealed that Indian authorities had ordered GitHub to instrumentality down repositories associated with the open-source messaging app, raising questions among integer rights advocates and ineligible experts astir the ineligible ground for restricting bundle based connected its functionality.

The Indian authorities said successful its bid to GitHub astatine the clip that Bitchat’s architecture made it hard for instrumentality enforcement agencies to intercept communications oregon hint users, and pointed to its quality to proceed operating during net shutdowns. The July bid relied connected a proviso of India’s accusation exertion instrumentality that deals with intermediaries and their liability for third-party content. That differs from Section 69A, cited successful Apple’s latest notice.

The Internet Freedom Foundation, a New Delhi-based integer rights advocacy group, called the latest bid unconstitutional, arguing that Section 69A allows the authorities to artifact unlawful accusation but not a messaging app due to the fact that of its quality to run during net shutdowns. It besides said neither the blocking bid nor the allegedly amerciable contented cited arsenic the ground for the enactment had been made public.

The latest restrictions connected Bitchat travel arsenic India is seeing a caller question of ⁠youth-led protests implicit changes to the country’s elector rolls. Police detained respective radical during demonstrations successful New Delhi connected Saturday, arsenic protesters demanded the resignation of India’s main predetermination commissioner implicit alleged manipulation of electoral rolls. Authorities suspended net services astir New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar for 12 hours connected Friday during protests there.

During July’s protests, demonstrators reportedly turned to Bitchat and rival app Briar aft authorities suspended net services.

Interest successful Bitchat surged successful India astir the aforesaid time. The state accounted for astir 85% of the app’s planetary downloads betwixt July 17 and July 23, up from astir 1% successful the erstwhile 30 days, information from marketplace quality steadfast Sensor Tower showed.