Jack Dorsey’s peer-to-peer messaging service Bitchat has been taken down from Apple’s service store at the request of China’s internet authority. The action draws attention to the ongoing struggle between decentralised technologies and strictly regulated digital ecosystems.
In a post on X, Dorsey shared a communication from Apple’s review team that disclosed the removal. The communication states that the app was removed in February at the Cyberspace Administration of China’s (CAC) request.
Bitchat is not your average messaging app. It can function without internet access since it uses mesh networks and Bluetooth. Due to this functionality, it has gained popularity in areas that are subject to severe censorship or internet shutdowns, such as the recent protests in parts of Asia and Africa. But this same capacity seems to have raised regulatory issues in China.
Authorities contend that apps that have the potential to affect public opinion or facilitate social coordination need to go through stringent security checks.
Bitchat probably fits into this category because it is offline and decentralised. In the meanwhile, Apple reaffirmed that all applications must abide by local laws wherever they are made available.
Despite being banned in China, Bitchat is nevertheless growing in popularity worldwide. There is an increasing demand for censorship-resistant communication tools, as evidenced by the fact that the number of downloads on various platforms has exceeded several million. The incident does, however, draw attention to a broader reality: even decentralised systems must traverse centralised regulatory regimes.
Source: X.com
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