Circumventing state-imposed internet blackouts
This is interesting. I experimented with bitchat when it first came out but now it looks like it's a bit more mature.
It's the kind of app we should all encourage friends and family to install, just in case. More on the Wikipedia page, including a bit of a genealogy of similar apps and how they have been used.
Bitchat, launched by the Twitter co-founder in 2025, allows nearby phones to communicate over Bluetooth even when mobile networks or internet access are unavailable. Last month, the app had its biggest real-world test after authorities shut down internet access during student protests in New Delhi.
As protesters turned to Bitchat, the Indian government tried to block access to the app’s source code on GitHub, a Microsoft-owned platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. In the past, the Indian government has blocked apps from official app stores due to various reasons, but digital rights advocates say this appears to be the first known attempt to geoblock an open-source software repository.
[...]
Across the globe, state-enforced internet blackouts have become a primary weapon against protests and independent journalism during political crises. Beyond silencing dissent, these measures serve to block real-time documentation and evade international scrutiny of official misconduct.
Apps built to function without the internet make those tactics less effective.
“The decentralized architecture of the app means that there is no central server or database and therefore there cannot be a central kill switch,” Namrata Maheshwari, senior policy counsel and encryption policy lead at digital civil rights nonprofit Access Now, told Rest of World. “Downloaded apps will continue to work as long as they are within the physical proximity required for the mesh network to function.”[...]
At the time of publication, the repositories remained accessible in India and had also been mirrored on decentralized platforms including Radicle and GitLawb, making them harder to remove entirely.
Source: Rest of World