The Unequal Price Of An Internet Shutdown

Bitchat has been removed from India’s App Store.

The Bluetooth messaging app lets people send encrypted messages between nearby phones without mobile internet, Wi-Fi or a central server. Apple says it was removed following a government request because Bitchat “includes content that is illegal in India”.

The development comes as Delhi sees protests over the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and demands for CEC Gyanesh Kumar’s resignation.

The app had gained traction during the student protests in July, when mobile internet was suspended around Jantar Mantar. Decode had documented how digital restrictions and surveillance became part of the State’s response to the protest.

Internet shutdowns are increasingly becoming a standard State response, not just to protests but also during communal violence and public examinations, where the stated aim has been to prevent cheating. According to Access Now, India recorded 65 internet shutdowns in 2025 alone. And now, the same response is extending to a tool designed to work around such shutdowns.

At a time when so much of everyday life runs through our phones, cutting connectivity affects far more than the people or places a restriction targets. We pay through them, find our way through them and even get work through them.

I remember meeting a Rapido rider during the July protest.

I was travelling with him towards Jantar Mantar when, about 1.5–2 km from the protest site, his phone screen went blank. The map disappeared. He was new to Delhi and did not know the route, so he had to turn back until he reached a point where he could access the internet again.

He eventually took a screenshot of the map, asked me to make the payment there itself and then continued towards the protest site. When he dropped me off, he said he would have to ride another 2 km without a booking, burning fuel just to get out of the restricted area.

What stayed with me was how differently a shutdown looks depending on where you are standing. For the administration, it can be a few kilometres marked on an order. For a gig worker, every kilometre can mean a booking, a fare, fuel and an hour of work.

Government’s arbitrary orders draw neat lines on paper. The costs of those lines are messier, and often borne by people far from where the decision was made. 

In this weekly newsletter, we try to look beyond the announcement to its impact, and beyond the technology to the accountability around it. Here are five stories that caught my attention this week.

If Bitchat Has No Content, What Exactly Is Being Blocked?

Bitchat was removed from India’s App Store after the government said it “includes content that is illegal in India”. But Bitchat has no servers or hosted content. It simply relays encrypted messages between nearby phones over Bluetooth.

The Internet Freedom Foundation has questioned the legal basis for the removal, arguing that Section 69A allows the government to block unlawful information, not an entire messaging tool. “What travels through it is the private speech of its users, so the claim that the application ‘includes’ illegal content is incoherent,” the statement read.

The Photos You Gave ChatGPT Could Have Ended Up Elsewhere

OpenAI said its AI agents accidentally posted links to 53 images uploaded by ChatGPT users on third-party websites. The company said the images were shared in error and is working to remove them. It comes weeks after the 80s’-style AI photo trend, when millions of people were uploading personal photos to ChatGPT. A reminder that when we hand our photos to AI, we may not know where they can end up.

Meta Is Adding More Parental Controls. But Are They Enough?

WhatsApp is rolling out new controls that let parents manage who can add their teenagers to groups, adjust privacy settings and limit access to some features, while keeping their messages private. But can parental controls solve a problem platforms themselves have helped create? More controls may give parents more oversight, but they do not necessarily tell us whether children are actually safer.

At The Ram Mandir, Security Means More Surveillance

Following the alleged donation theft at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, security reforms are going beyond CCTV and police checks. Staff will have facial-recognition attendance, their movements and duties will be digitally tracked, and the trust plans to maintain a digital “kundli” of every employee.

When security is the goal, the answer increasingly seems to be more cameras, more data and more ways of tracking people, making surveillance part of the routine.

Will The Next Data Centre Be In Space?

Google is testing whether satellites carrying its AI chips could operate in orbit, where they would have access to almost constant sunlight for power. The idea sounds like science fiction, but it is trying to solve a very earthly problem. AI needs enormous amounts of computing power, and data centres need enormous amounts of energy to run them. If AI keeps getting bigger, its infrastructure may have to get stranger too.

New On Decode

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At Decode Internet this week, we followed the debate over AI and authorship.

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Decode This Week is your weekly guide to the technology changing how we live, work and navigate the world around us. From AI and algorithms to scams, surveillance, platforms and digital policy, we look beyond the hype to ask a simple question: what does this mean for you?

Until next week :)