Jack Dorsey 去中心化通訊應用 Bitchat 遭中國 App Store 下架

Bitchat, released in July 2025 by Block Chief Executive and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is an open-source, serverless messaging app that uses Bluetooth Low Energy mesh networks to relay encrypted messages without mobile service, internet access, accounts or phone numbers. It can also forward bitcoin transactions. The design makes the tool useful during outages and protests, but its anonymous, decentralized architecture complicates interception, attribution and evidence-gathering by law enforcement, placing it at the center of a broader debate over communications access during government-imposed shutdowns.

The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, part of the Ministry of Home Affairs, issued a notice on July 23, 2026, ordering Microsoft-owned GitHub to disable three URLs — Bitchat’s main repository, its Android repository and the Android releases page — within three hours. Dorsey disclosed the two-page order on X on July 24. The action followed protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi, where mobile internet was temporarily suspended and demonstrators turned to Bluetooth mesh tools. The named pages remained accessible at publication, while GitHub had not said whether it would comply.