India orders the removal of Bitchat from the App Store and Google Play

Bitchat, Jack Dorsey’s decentralised messaging app designed to work without an internet connection, has disappeared from Apple and Google’s app stores in India, months after New Delhi’s first attempt to restrict access, as TechCrunch reports. Dorsey said on Saturday that the Indian government had ordered Apple to remove Bitchat from the App Store in the country; he posted on X Apple’s notice, according to which the request was issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act — the main legal provision for government-ordered online blocking.

Apple’s notice said Bitchat would remain available outside India, but that access via TestFlight would also be blocked in the country. When TechCrunch checked on Saturday, Bitchat was no longer downloadable via Google Play in India either; Bitchat’s website was also unreachable through several internet providers, although it was not clear whether Google and the providers had also received government orders. Apple, Google and the ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Bitchat was launched in July last year and uses Bluetooth mesh networking to let nearby devices exchange encrypted messages without a mobile network, the internet or central servers. In July 2026, Dorsey revealed that the Indian authorities had ordered GitHub to remove Bitchat’s code repositories; the government said at the time that the app’s architecture made it difficult for the police to intercept communications and track users, also noting its ability to function during internet shutdowns — that order used a different legal provision, unlike the Section 69A cited now.

The Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group in New Delhi, called the latest order unconstitutional: Section 69A allows the government to block unlawful information, but not a messaging app because of its ability to function during internet shutdowns; neither the blocking order nor the allegedly unlawful content were made public, according to the group.

The context of the measure is linked to a new wave of youth-led protests in India over changes to the electoral rolls: police detained several people at Saturday’s demonstrations in New Delhi, while protesters demanded the resignation of the chief election commissioner over alleged manipulation of the rolls; the authorities suspended the internet around Jantar Mantar in New Delhi for 12 hours on Friday. During the July protests, demonstrators reportedly turned to Bitchat and the rival app Briar after the authorities suspended the internet; according to Sensor Tower data, India accounted for around 85% of Bitchat’s global downloads between 17 and 23 July, from around 1% in the previous 30 days.