Bitchat, Dorsey's offline chat app, vanishes from India's stores

Bitchat, Jack Dorsey’s decentralized messaging app designed to work without an internet connection, has disappeared from Apple’s and Google’s app stores in India, months after New Delhi first sought to restrict access to the open-source software. Dorsey said Saturday that the Indian government had ordered Apple to remove Bitchat from its App Store in the country.

In a notice from Apple that Dorsey posted on X, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued the demand under Section 69A of the IT Act, the country’s primary legal provision for government-ordered online blocking. The notice said Bitchat would stay available outside India, though its TestFlight beta service would also be blocked there. Bitchat was also gone from Google Play in India when TechCrunch checked on Saturday, and its website was inaccessible across several Indian internet providers. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Google and the providers had received similar directions; Apple, Google, and India’s IT ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Launched in July last year, Bitchat uses Bluetooth mesh networking to let nearby devices exchange encrypted messages without relying on cellular networks, internet access, or centralized servers. In July 2026, Dorsey revealed that Indian authorities had ordered GitHub to take down repositories associated with the app, raising questions among digital rights advocates and legal experts about the legal basis for restricting software based on its functionality. That order said Bitchat’s architecture made it hard for law enforcement to intercept or trace communications, and pointed to its ability to keep operating during internet shutdowns — relying on a different legal provision, covering intermediary liability for third-party content, than the Section 69A cited in Apple’s latest notice.

The Internet Freedom Foundation, a New Delhi-based digital rights group, called the latest order unconstitutional, arguing that Section 69A allows the government to block unlawful information but not a messaging app simply because of its ability to operate during internet shutdowns. It also said neither the blocking order nor the allegedly illegal content cited as its basis had been made public.

The restrictions come as India sees a fresh wave of youth-led protests over changes to the country’s voter rolls. Police detained several people during demonstrations in New Delhi on Saturday, where protesters demanded the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner over alleged manipulation of electoral rolls. Authorities had suspended internet services around New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar for 12 hours on Friday during those protests. During July’s protests, demonstrators reportedly turned to Bitchat and rival app Briar after authorities suspended internet services; interest in Bitchat surged in India around the same time, with the country accounting for about 85% of the app’s global downloads between July 17 and July 23, up from roughly 1% in the previous 30 days, according to data from Sensor Tower.

Why it matters

The case tests how far a government can reach to restrict software based on what it enables rather than what it says, and sets a precedent other governments facing protest movements may watch closely when considering mesh-network and offline-messaging tools.