By Harshita Mary Varghese, Jaspreet Singh and Aditya Soni
Jan 14 (Reuters) - A little-known offline messaging app launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has emerged as a key lifeline for Ugandans cut off from the internet ahead of a contentious election that could extend President Yoweri Museveni's four-decade rule.
Bitchat has surged to the top of Apple and Google app stores in the African country after clocking more than 28,000 downloads this year, according to research firm Apptopia. That marks
a nearly fourfold increase over the previous two months combined.
Its usage has also jumped more than three times in Iran as internet shutdowns by the country's clerical rulers aimed at quelling nationwide protests force people to look for workarounds, the data showed.
Dorsey, who has said he is "partially to blame" for the centralization of the internet and regrets it, launched Bitchat last year after what he said was a week of coding in July.
The app has a minimal user interface and requires no log-in - its surge in popularity is reminiscent of the amplifying role Twitter played in the Arab Spring by allowing activists to broadcast real-time footage of protests and police brutality.
Unlike Twitter, which is now called X, Bitchat does not require internet or cellular connectivity. It uses Bluetooth mesh technology to create a decentralized, offline network where a message from one person uses another person's phone as a stepping stone to hop the text along until it reaches the destination.
While not as popular as messaging services like WhatsApp or Apple's iMessage, Bluetooth-based messaging services have over the years become a go-to option for protestors as governments increasingly impose internet shutdowns.
Activists during Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests in 2020 turned to apps like Bridgefy, which is powered by the same technology. Bridgefy was also downloaded over 1 million times in Myanmar in 2021 after the country's military seized power.
RISING INTERNET SHUTDOWNS
Bobi Wine, a Ugandan pop star and main opposition candidate, urged people in the country late last month to download Bitchat, saying the government was planning a web shutdown soon to ensure citizens "do not organise, verify their election results".
"HAVE YOU DOWNLOADED BITCHAT YET?" he said in a post on X that was reposted nearly 2,000 times.
On Tuesday, Ugandan authorities cut internet access and limited mobile services across the country to curb what it said were "misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and related risks", according to a letter seen by Reuters.
Security forces have detained hundreds of opposition supporters ahead of Thursday's election and repeatedly fired live bullets and tear gas at campaign events in support of Wine.
Several experts and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, urged Uganda to end the shutdown and said that instead of curbing misinformation, web blackouts can increase the spread of rumors.
"Internet shutdowns violate fundamental human rights and have become a familiar tool used by governments during moments of political or electoral stress," said Aditya Vashistha, assistant professor at Cornell University. "They mainly reduce coordination and information sharing, with little credible evidence that they reduce misinformation or electoral risk."
In 2024, digital rights watchdogs Access Now and the #KeepItOn coalition documented 296 shutdowns in 54 countries.
(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese, Jaspreet Singh and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; writing by Aditya Soni; editing by Mark Heinrich)
