Bitchat, the offline messaging app developed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has been removed from both Apple’s App Store and Google Play in India following blocking directions from the Union ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY). Its website has also become inaccessible across several Indian internet service providers.

Dorsey made the App Store removal public in a post on X on Saturday, October 3, sharing a screenshot of a notice from Apple’s App Review team. According to the notice, the app was removed “per demand from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)” because it “includes content that is illegal in India”. Apple has also blocked TestFlight testing of the app in India. The notice cited Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, but did not say what the illegal content is, or which of the grounds listed in Section 69A was invoked. The same day, TechCrunch found that the app could no longer be downloaded from Google Play in India.

Bitchat remains available on the App Store in other countries.

What is Bitchat?

Bitchat is an open-source messaging app launched in July 2025. Its distinguishing feature is that it can work without the internet or a mobile network. Phones running the app connect to each other over Bluetooth, and messages hop from device to device, forming a mesh network that can extend well beyond the range of a single Bluetooth connection. Messages are end-to-end encrypted, and the app does not require a phone number or an account. It also has an internet-based mode, but it is the offline mesh that has made it popular where governments have shut down the internet, including Nepal, Indonesia, Uganda and Iran.

Not the First Attempt by India to Restrict Bitchat

This is the second known attempt by the Indian government to restrict Bitchat in less than three months. In July, during the student protests at Jantar Mantar over the NEET paper leak, mobile internet was suspended around Parliament and Jantar Mantar, and protesters turned to Bitchat to stay in touch. According to Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch, India accounted for 85% of the app’s global downloads between July 17 and 23.

On July 23, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), which functions under the Union ministry of home affairs, issued a notice to GitHub asking it to remove three pages hosting Bitchat’s source code and Android releases within three hours. The notice argued that the app’s design made it difficult for law enforcement agencies to intercept communications, identify users or conduct investigations. Dorsey responded that “the government of india does not like technologies like bitchat and wants it taken down”. (sic)

At the time, the repositories remained accessible. That notice relied primarily on provisions of the IT Act dealing with the liability of intermediaries, not on the blocking power under Section 69A. According to MediaNama, the July orders were later withdrawn.

India is also not the first country to have the app removed from Apple’s store. In February this year, Apple removed Bitchat from its China App Store at the request of the Cyberspace Administration of China.

The Internet Freedom Foundation has called the order unconstitutional, arguing that Section 69A allows the blocking of unlawful information, not the removal of a messaging application because it can operate during internet shutdowns. It has said it will file applications under the RTI Act seeking a copy of the order.

The Problem with a Single Gatekeeper

Both Apple and Google have complied with MeitY’s directions, but the consequences for users of the two platforms are not the same. On an iPhone in India, the App Store is the only practical way to install an app.

Apple’s own guidelines require apps to comply with the law in every territory where they are offered, and Apple has shown, in China and now in India, that it will act on government demands. When a single company controls the only distribution channel, a government does not need to persuade millions of users or thousands of developers. It needs to persuade one company. Apple has built its brand on privacy, and its device-level protections are not in question here. What this episode shows is more specific: An iPhone sold in India cannot be relied on as a tool for communicating outside channels the state controls, if the state objects.

Android, for Now, is Different

On Android, removing an app from the Play Store does not prevent people from using it. Users can still download installation files (APKs) from elsewhere and install them. With the Bitchat website blocked, that is harder than it was a week ago, but in late July Bitchat added a feature that lets Android users share the app itself with nearby phones without the internet. An app that spreads directly from phone to phone is not easily removed by directions to two companies.

That openness, however, is narrowing. Since September, certified Android devices in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand only install apps from developers who have registered their identity with Google. Apps from unregistered developers can still be installed through a developer tool (ADB) or an “advanced flow” that includes a 24-hour waiting period. Google plans to extend the requirement to certified devices globally, India included, in 2027. Sideloading will survive, but the friction will rise. A central registry of verified developers also creates a new point at which governments can apply pressure.

The Alternatives that Already Exist

There is a whole ecosystem of mobile operating systems that sit outside the control of both Apple and Google, and none of them depends on an app store that a government can lean on.

GrapheneOS is an open-source, security-hardened version of Android for Google Pixel phones. It does not ship Google’s services by default, though users can install them in a sandbox if they need specific apps, and it allows the bootloader to be relocked after installation, which preserves verified boot.

LineageOS, the most widely used community build of Android, supports a far larger range of phones, including many older and mid-range models common in India. In a blog post in July, the project explained that Google’s developer verification applies only to certified devices that ship Google Mobile Services, and since LineageOS ships neither, it is not affected. The project has said it would disable the verification component even if Google moved it into Play Services. /e/OS, built on LineageOS, takes this a step further by selling phones with a de-Googled system preinstalled, removing the need to flash anything.

Beyond Android, there are full Linux distributions for phones. postmarketOS is based on Alpine Linux and aims to extend the life of phones long abandoned by their manufacturers. Ubuntu Touch, maintained by the UBports community, runs on a range of devices.

Bitchat is also not the only tool of its kind. Briar, an open-source messenger designed for activists and journalists, has for years allowed messaging over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi without the internet, and over Tor when the internet is available. It is distributed through F-Droid, an app store for free and open-source software that exists entirely outside Google’s control, and as a direct download.

Who the Removal Actually Affects

The government’s stated concern, as set out in the July notice, is that apps like Bitchat make lawful interception and investigation harder. Taking the app off two app stores and blocking its website do not resolve that concern. Android users can still install it, iPhone users with an App Store account registered in another country can still download it, the source code is public, and the alternatives described above put the entire question of app stores out of the government’s reach.

The people the government says it fears are precisely the people with the motivation and resources to use these routes. A well-resourced criminal network can install LineageOS on cheap phones, or simply sideload an APK. What the removal does is it raises the cost of access for everyone else.

The common user in India does not unlock bootloaders or flash operating systems. Doing so can void warranties, risks bricking a phone, and has a practical cost that weighs particularly heavily here: Many banking and UPI apps may refuse to run on custom operating systems. For most people, a phone that cannot make UPI payments is not a usable phone. So the person most likely to be cut off is not a criminal but a student at a protest where the mobile internet has been switched off, someone in a district under an internet shutdown trying to reach family, or anyone who simply trusts the default app store on the phone they bought. The burden of the order falls on those least able to work around it.