Dorsey's Bluetooth Chat App Bitchat Gets the Boot in India
What happened
India's Home Ministry cybercrime unit ordered GitHub to pull Bitchat, a Bluetooth-based offline messaging app built by Jack Dorsey, citing security concerns. Dorsey posted the takedown notice on X, dated July 23, 2026. The order followed reports that protesters at Jantar Mantar used Bluetooth-based apps to communicate after the government cut internet access.
Why this matters
Bitchat works without internet or cell towers, using mesh Bluetooth connections between nearby phones — exactly the kind of tech that makes government-imposed internet shutdowns useless. That's a nightmare scenario for any state that leans on connectivity blackouts as a protest-control tool.
The slightly cynical read
An app literally designed to work when the internet doesn't gets banned the moment it works as advertised during a protest. Shocking absolutely no one who's watched governments treat 'security concerns' as a catch-all for 'this is inconvenient for us.'
What to watch next
Watch whether GitHub actually complies, whether Dorsey pushes back publicly, and whether other governments start eyeing mesh-networking apps as the next thing to preemptively restrict.