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Jack Dorsey is wrong on Bitchat and India's takedown order: Here's why
The government of India would be remiss if it did not prevent a technology from being deliberately deployed to frustrate law enforcement.
In his famous essay, On Bullshit, philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote that the “essence of bullshit” is a “phony” statement that is “disconnected from a concern with the truth”. It comes from a person who simply does not care what is true or false but wants only to posture. Such flippancy, Frankfurt argued, makes it “a greater enemy of the truth than lies are”.
A notable sample of the same was served up by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, who took to X to complain when, in the midst of a student protest in Central Delhi, the government ordered GitHub to block access to Bitchat, an app that he designed to allow users to communicate over a “mesh” of Bluetooth connections and thereby evade government control over and surveillance of internet channels.
Dorsey’s post, now viewed nearly four million times, shared the blocking order and curtly declared that the Government of India “does not like technologies like Bitchat”. The curtness is not new. In 2018, Dorsey posed with a placard that said “Smash Brahminical Patriarchy”, signalling his deep knowledge of the millennia-old civilisation he was visiting for the first time (he visited the Dalai Lama too, but somehow omitted to carry a placard saying “Smash Serfdom”). Or consider Dorsey’s bio on X, which simply reads ”no state is the best state”, a grand statement from an individual whose wealth and property are protected by the immense powers of the US.
Since Dorsey is evidently given to sloganeering, what should we think about the Indian government’s order? Consider three criticisms.
It is possible to argue that peer-to-peer messaging apps like Bitchat — which free users from dependence on a network or server — should be permitted because they can prove useful when outages or disasters affect internet service. This argument is not conclusive, however. The fact that a technology has legitimate emergency uses does not establish a right to deploy it during serious disturbances.
A second objection is that it is futile to try to control open-source technology. When GitHub was ordered to take down Bitchat, copies of its repository quickly appeared elsewhere, while downloads and usage reportedly increased, leading critics to gleefully cite it as an example of the Streisand Effect. This objection is unpersuasive as well. A sufficiently motivated government can employ technical countermeasures, impose requirements on devices sold in the country, and, in extremis, permit the inspection of phones. It is all very well to cosplay a Soviet dissident by talking up features such as Bitchat’s “panic wipe” (where tapping three times on the app’s icon erases its data), but such theatrics are unlikely to withstand determined thanas.
A third objection is that the takedown order lacks statutory and constitutional authority because it relies on Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, which grants intermediaries (in this case, GitHub) immunity from prosecution so long as they remove content (in this case, Bitchat) that is deemed unlawful. According to critics such as the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), Section 79(3)(b) was never meant to be employed as “a blocking power” and using it to block an entire application — rather than a particular unlawful use of that application — violates Article 19(2) of the Constitution.
The statutory complaint stands on shaky ground. In its widely circulated commentary on the Bitchat order, the IFF omitted to discuss the recent decision in X v. Union of India (2025), in which the Karnataka High Court upheld this use of Section 79(3)(b). The court relied in substantial measure on the argument that the blocking procedures authorised under Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) — which require “a hearing and reasons recorded in writing, subject to review” — can stymie prompt intervention in an era when technological advances have vastly increased the scale and speed with which “unlawful content” can spread. It is certainly possible that, upon further review, courts will add or refine safeguards on the use of Section 79(3)(b). But, as a matter of principle, it is hard to see how they can disagree with justice M Nagaprasanna’s observation that every State is entitled to exercise “timely and effective regulation” over speech and expression when important public interests are at stake.
This brings us to the constitutional issue: Is it reasonable to block an entire application, specifically one that allows the circumvention of internet shutdowns? When Dorsey writes that the government of India does not “like” Bitchat, and when advocacy groups like IFF describe its takedown order as “authoritarian”, they are insinuating that the government of India is acting illegitimately — that it is acting roguishly or contrary to what the Constitution or citizens will permit.
As a matter of constitutional principle, this is nonsense. To safeguard citizens is an essential duty of the State. Hence the timeless doctrine, salus populi suprema lex (the safety of the people is the supreme law). Of course, safety is not the only interest in play. A constitutional regime seeks to shape how varied and often conflicting interests are to be balanced against one another. The constitutional imperative, per Article 19(2), that the government of India only impose “reasonable restrictions” on speech and expression is well established — and for good reason. The abuse of power is always a concern and citizens are certainly entitled to demand safeguards — and officers are correspondingly obliged to abide by such rules. But this does not mean the power in question should not exist. In the current context, the government of India would in fact be remiss if it did not prevent a technology from being deliberately deployed to frustrate law enforcement. Courts may, of course, choose to ask for an ex parte showing as to the necessity of an internet shutdown — and why alternative, less draconian, measures will not suffice. But the suggestion that the State should be wholly debarred from employing shutdowns presumes there can be no public interest whatsoever in preventing subversive elements from taking advantage of a protest or disturbance.
This brings us to a deeper point about political legitimacy. It has become fashionable to belittle decisions of the government of India as mere expressions of “authoritarianism”. Perhaps, it needs to be underscored that the government of India exercises its authority in the name of a sovereign people, whose democratically elected representatives and constitutionally mandated institutions give political and legal expression to their interests.
The preferences expressed through this arrangement may be noisy and disorderly, and our existing political system may translate them imperfectly into policy.
But, for all its flaws, this arrangement vests the government of India with far greater political legitimacy than that enjoyed by unelected individuals and advocacy groups that grandiloquently assume that everyone likes — or ought to like — their preferred policies. If Indians repeatedly vote for a law and order agenda, then that is their sovereign choice. And so, with all due respect, spare us the bull, Jack.
Rahul Sagar is a Global Network associate professor at NYU Abu Dhabi. His latest book is The Birth of Indian Liberalism. The views expressed are personal
