Why India Ordered GitHub to Takedown Jack Dorsey's Bitchat

What Features of Bitchat Did the Government Cite in the Takedown Order?

The government's notice specifically objected to four technical characteristics of Bitchat:

• Bluetooth mesh networking — messages hop device-to-device without any cellular or internet connection .
• No user registration or phone number verification — anyone can use the app anonymously .
• No central server — there is no single point of control or interception for law enforcement .
• Censorship-resistant design — the app was built on Bitcoin-inspired decentralization principles .

The Home Ministry argued that these features allow users to evade "lawful surveillance" and pose a "substantial risk of misuse by anti-national elements, terrorists, and organized crime groups" to India's sovereignty, public order, and national security .

How Did Protesters Use Bitchat Amid Internet Shutdowns?

When the government cut mobile internet in central Delhi, traditional messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal stopped working . Protesters installed Bitchat and used its Bluetooth mesh networking to send text messages and coordinate across distances of several hundred meters, with messages automatically relayed through other users' phones in a daisy-chain fashion . The app helped protesters locate friends who had scattered during police clashes, receive updates from organizers, and maintain communication in areas where calls and mobile data were completely unavailable . Reports described the app as an "emergency toolkit" that "beat internet plug-outs" and became a critical coordination tool for Gen Z protesters adapting to government internet curbs . Downloads of Bitchat surged more than eightfold in India over the course of the protests .

Why Do Digital Rights Groups and Developers Argue the Takedown Will Be Ineffective?

India's Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) called the order unconstitutional, arguing it exceeds the government's legal authority under the IT Act and threatens free speech and the open-source software ecosystem . Since Bitchat's code is open source, removing it from GitHub does not delete all copies — anyone who already forked, cloned, or downloaded the repository can still build and distribute the app independently . The IFF warned that the move sets a dangerous precedent for targeting open-source projects based on how users might hypothetically misuse them, rather than on any illegality in the code itself . Multiple reports note that the order is largely symbolic and easily circumvented — the same code can be re-uploaded to other platforms like GitLab, hosted on self-hosted servers, or shared via peer-to-peer channels, making a centralized takedown inherently ineffective against a decentralized, offline-first application . As Jack Dorsey himself posted on X in response: "The government of India does not like technologies like Bitchat and wants it taken down" .