In mid-2025, the founder of the social media platforms Twitter and Bluesky released Bitchat. This app uses Bluetooth to enable smartphone users to communicate with other Bitchat users in a decentralized network and evade surveillance. (See further explanation of how Bitchat works at the Dataist, quoted below.) Now Bitchat is gone from Apple’s China app store (Coingeek, April 10, 2026).
On April 6, Dorsey posted on X a message from Apple notifying him of the decision to remove the Bitchat app from its China store, “per the demand from the CAC (Cyberspace Administration of China).”…
“According to the CAC, your app violates Articles 3 of the Provisions on the Security Assessment of Internet-based Information Services with Attribute of Public Opinions or Capable of Social Mobilization,” read the notice.
The provision in question was introduced in 2018 as part of a new regulation aimed at preserving “national security, social order, and the public interest” by strengthening security management of internet information services that have a so-called “public opinion nature,” or can facilitate social mobilization, such as mass protest, unrest, or dissent.
Bitchat reportedly crossed 3 million total downloads worldwide across platforms before the takedown, with more than 92,000 installs in the preceding week alone. Apple’s TestFlight version in China reportedly reached its 10,000-user limit before the takedown. This accelerating growth appears to have brought the app into conflict with Beijing’s strict digital surveillance infrastructure.
People in China determined to evade the censors will have to find other ways to get the app.
It’s easy to see what the Chinese party-state has against Bitchat. The CCP regards any even marginal weakening of its surveillance-and-censorship chokehold as anathema. One big reason is that within China, “isolated” rebellions against the national government or local organizations keep erupting. News of these rebellions tends to be rapidly suppressed on China’s centralized Internet; it would be much harder to suppress if everybody in China with a smartphone had something like Bitchat. One of the things that keeps rebels and revolutionaries going is the knowledge that it’s not just their local group that feels this way.
Because of these and other concerns, the Party often discovers “problems” with this or that app or category of app and tells Apple to remove the offending apps. Apple invariably obeys, citing the fact that this is its policy.
Over the years
In 2020, Apple removed tens of thousands of games and other apps “amid a crackdown on unlicensed games by Chinese authorities.”
In the same year, Apple removed various VPN apps from its China app store, part a CCP crackdown on virtual private networks that continues, not altogether successfully, to this day.
In 2023, Apple removed “over 100 generative AI and ChatGPT-related apps from its mainland Chinese store in response to new Chinese government regulations on managing generative AI.” Among other deficiencies that concerned the censors, the apps were not doing their part to promote “core socialist values.”
In 2024, Apple removed the social-media apps WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram from its China app store.
In 2025, Apple removed the gay dating apps Blued and Finka from its China app store.
Also see:
The Dataist: “The Mesh Network Revolution”
“In July 2025, the digital communication landscape underwent a fundamental shift when Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Block, Inc., unveiled his latest project, Bitchat…. Unlike traditional messaging platforms that rely on centralized servers, cellular data, or even a basic internet connection, Bitchat operates through a sophisticated Bluetooth low energy mesh network. [Using] the hardware already present in modern smartphones, the application creates an ad hoc, self-healing communication web where each device acts as both a client and a relay node. This architecture ensures that as long as users are within physical proximity to one another, they can maintain a secure and private dialogue regardless of the status of global infrastructure….
“Dorsey has frequently stated that the reliance on centralized intermediaries for communication is a significant vulnerability for individual liberty. During a notable period of civil unrest in Madagascar in late 2025, Bitchat reportedly saw over seventy thousand downloads in a single week, proving its utility as a tool for coordination when traditional networks were compromised. This real-world application has validated Dorsey’s focus on geohash-based location chatting, which allows users to join regional rooms based on their physical coordinates without revealing their exact GPS location to a central authority.”
