India Orders GitHub to Remove Bitchat Source Code in 3-Hour Takedown

India’s cybercrime arm has ordered GitHub to pull the source code for Bitchat — the offline, peer-to-peer messaging app created by Jack Dorsey — giving Microsoft’s platform just three hours to comply. What happened - The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), part of the Ministry of Home Affairs, issued the takedown notice on Thursday. It named three repositories under the “permissionlesstech” account: the main Bitchat project, the Android build, and the Android releases page. - The order invoked Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, 2000 and Rule 3(1)(d) of the 2021 IT Rules, directing GitHub to “remove and disable access” to the code while preserving evidence. Why the government acted - Bitchat lets nearby phones exchange messages directly over Bluetooth mesh networks with no internet, servers, phone numbers or accounts. I4C argued that design “significantly impedes lawful interception, attribution, and investigation,” and warned the app could be exploited during public disorder, riots, terrorism, organized crime or internet shutdowns. The agency also cited provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (India’s criminal code). Context: protests and offline tools - The order arrives amid a youth-led movement over leaked exam papers. Tens of thousands have rallied in Delhi with the satirical Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), and authorities have imposed mobile internet cuts around Parliament and the Jantar Mantar protest site — conditions that pushed protesters toward offline messaging tools like Bitchat. - Jack Dorsey reposted the notice on July 24, 2026 with the comment, “the government of india does not like technologies like bitchat.” The Bitchat Community account said, “Governments that fear people talking without permission will always go after the tools that make it possible.” Pushback and international precedent - Civil liberties group Internet Freedom Foundation blasted the order as “unconstitutional and authoritarian,” saying it named no unlawful content and bypassed India’s standard blocking procedures. - India is not alone: China ordered Bitchat removed from Apple’s App Store in April, following Beijing’s 2023 ban on Dorsey’s Nostr-based Damus. Regulators in multiple countries have moved to curb apps that enable offline or decentralized communications. Why targeting source code matters - Removing an app from an app store restricts distribution, but demanding deletion of source code attempts to halt a project at its roots. Open-source projects, however, are resilient: code can be copied and mirrored. Within hours of India’s order, Bitchat repositories were mirrored to decentralized code host GitLawb. - The episode also comes as Dorsey’s Block explores ways to reduce dependence on centralized hosts: the company recently launched Buzz, a decentralized collaboration platform pitched as an alternative to GitHub. Where this leaves GitHub and developers - Microsoft has not publicly confirmed whether it met the three-hour deadline. The order raises broader questions for the crypto and open-source communities about how governments will treat decentralized, offline-first tools — and whether legal claims about public safety will increasingly clash with principles of censorship resistance and developer freedom. Bottom line India’s demand to take down Bitchat’s source code marks a notable escalation: it’s not just app stores being pressured, but the codebases themselves. For the crypto and decentralization communities, the incident underscores both the political sensitivity of offline, serverless messaging and the limits (and resilience) of open-source censorship resistance.