Bitchat is gone. But the tech race to keep up with protesters isn't

On October 3, Jack Dorsey's Bitchat disappeared from Apple's App Store in India after the IT ministry demanded its removal. It vanished from Google Play too. Bitchat lets phones pass messages over Bluetooth, with no internet needed. That made it a lifeline in July, when the government switched off mobile internet around Delhi's Jantar Mantar during student protests. In one week, India accounted for 85% of the app's global downloads. Even an order to pull its code off GitHub didn't stop it spreading. So the government went after the app stores. In this episode, host Snigdha Sharma looks at the technology protesters reach for when the internet goes dark, and how governments are learning to keep up.Tune in.Also listen to: Delhi built a ‘safe’ surveillance city. It can now locate anyone in secondsThis episode was edited by Arnav PrakashDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.