Summary
- The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has mandated GitHub to eliminate three Bitchat code repositories within three hours, citing the IT Act and 2021 IT Rules.
- The agency expressed concerns that the Bluetooth-based, serverless application could hinder lawful surveillance and be misused during "public disorder, riots, terrorism," or internet outages.
- Jack Dorsey shared the notice publicly, while the Internet Freedom Foundation labeled the action as "unconstitutional and authoritarian."
The Indian government has instructed GitHub to take down the code for Bitchat, a decentralized messaging application created by Jack Dorsey, allowing only three hours for compliance.
This directive, issued on Thursday by the I4C under the Ministry of Home Affairs, specifically targeted three repositories associated with the "permissionlesstech" account—the core Bitchat project, its Android version, and the Android releases page. It referenced Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, 2000 and Rule 3(1)(d) of the 2021 IT Rules, instructing GitHub to "remove and disable access" to the code while preserving evidence.
the government of india does not like technologies like bitchat and wants it taken down pic.twitter.com/gjzMg1NGCi
— jack (@jack) July 24, 2026
Bitchat facilitates direct messaging between nearby devices using Bluetooth mesh networks, operating without internet connectivity, servers, phone numbers, or accounts. The I4C stated that this design "significantly impedes lawful interception, attribution, and investigation." The agency cautioned that the application could be misused during "public disorder, riots, terrorism, organized crime, or internet shutdowns," referencing the IT Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, India's criminal legislation.
'Cockroach' Protests
This order comes at a time when India is facing a youth-driven movement in response to exam-paper leaks. Thousands have gathered in Delhi, rallying behind the humorously titled Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), with Prime Minister Narendra Modi promising expedited legal proceedings against officials accused of exam fraud. As mobile internet access was restricted around Parliament and the Jantar Mantar protest site, demonstrators resorted to offline communication methods like Bitchat.
Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter and Block, shared the notice with a brief comment indicating that the "government of india does not like technologies like bitchat." Meanwhile, the Bitchat Community remarked that “Governments that fear people talking without permission will always go after the tools that make it possible.” The Internet Freedom Foundation denounced the order as "unconstitutional and authoritarian," arguing that it did not specify any illegal content and circumvented India's established blocking protocols.
India is not the first country to take action against the app. Earlier, China removed it from Apple's App Store in April, reflecting Beijing's 2023 prohibition of Dorsey's Nostr-based Damus. While removing an app from a store restricts its distribution, eliminating the source code aims to terminate the project entirely—though open-source code can be replicated and mirrored freely.
Indeed, shortly after India's crackdown, Bitchat repositories were mirrored to the decentralized platform GitLawb. A few days prior, Dorsey's Block introduced Buzz, a decentralized solution designed to reduce reliance on GitHub. Microsoft has yet to confirm if it adhered to the three-hour timeline.