India Orders GitHub to Take Down Jack Dorsey's Bitchat Amid Protests
3 hours ago
- India's I4C ordered GitHub to remove three Bitchat code repositories within three hours, citing the IT Act and 2021 IT Rules.
- The agency argued that Bitchat's Bluetooth-based, serverless design impedes lawful surveillance and could be misused during riots, terrorism, or internet shutdowns.
- Jack Dorsey published the notice, and the Internet Freedom Foundation called the takedown authoritarian and unconstitutional.
- The order coincides with youth-led protests over exam-paper leaks in India, where demonstrators used offline tools like Bitchat amid internet cuts.
- India is the second country after China to target Bitchat; repositories were later mirrored to decentralized platform GitLawb.