TFTC on Nostr: India ordered GitHub to remove BitChat repositories within three hours. The ...
India ordered GitHub to remove BitChat repositories within three hours.
The government's argument: the app's offline, decentralized Bluetooth messaging lets protesters communicate during internet shutdowns, making "lawful interception" difficult.
BitChat downloads in India jumped 32x on July 19 after authorities began restricting internet access around the student-led protests in New Delhi.
India now accounts for 85% of global downloads, with over 91,000 installs in five days and 330,000 daily active users.
The Indian government isn't targeting specific illegal content. They're targeting the architecture itself, the fact that BitChat works without central servers and can't be shut off by flipping a switch.
As the Internet Freedom Foundation pointed out, "deleting a repository does not delete the application from any phone that carries it, and the mesh keeps functioning without servers. What the takedown actually prevents is scrutiny of the underlying code."
This is the Samourai Wallet playbook applied to communication. Prosecute the tool because you can't control the protocol.
Open source, peer-to-peer, no servers. That's why they're scared of it.
Published at
2026-07-24 21:16:58 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "India ordered GitHub to remove BitChat repositories within three hours.\n\nThe government's argument: the app's offline, decentralized Bluetooth messaging lets protesters communicate during internet shutdowns, making \"lawful interception\" difficult.\n\nBitChat downloads in India jumped 32x on July 19 after authorities began restricting internet access around the student-led protests in New Delhi.\n\nIndia now accounts for 85% of global downloads, with over 91,000 installs in five days and 330,000 daily active users.\n\nThe Indian government isn't targeting specific illegal content. They're targeting the architecture itself, the fact that BitChat works without central servers and can't be shut off by flipping a switch.\n\nAs the Internet Freedom Foundation pointed out, \"deleting a repository does not delete the application from any phone that carries it, and the mesh keeps functioning without servers. What the takedown actually prevents is scrutiny of the underlying code.\"\n\nThis is the Samourai Wallet playbook applied to communication. Prosecute the tool because you can't control the protocol.\n\nOpen source, peer-to-peer, no servers. That's why they're scared of it.\nhttps://blossom.primal.net/446286e17fb1e1b34159c60d806bd4f6df3db208dd8d1f70cc57c09600798624.jpg",
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