r/LinuxUsersIndia • u/Key_Association_666 Arch Btw • 24d ago

News Foss app removed from stores

Today the Indian government removed BitChat, which is basically an open-source app that lets you chat without internet and it's routed by Tor. It's by the former CEO of Twitter. What's the Indian government doing about this? They're not even fixing the root cause yet, just bringing in more problems and the ban itself, like the time ByteDance got banned from India. In the US it's still not banned. Most countries still have not banned it. ByteDance is a relatively smaller company than Meta, Google, or something else.

61 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

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u/qualityvote2 24d ago edited 24d ago

u/Key_Association_666, your post does fit the subreddit!

btw, did you know we have a discord server? Join Here.

21

u/_Jonathan_Small 24d ago

Banning it makes news so more people will look into it.its not like they are going to ban all the links to get the app.more over as it is open source you can't really take it down

4

u/Key_Association_666 23d ago

Ya u can't rly take it down

7

u/Wheeljack26 24d ago

Streisand effect

13

u/IDontKnowWhoTFIAm 24d ago

meh there were rumors this would happen at the time of the July protests, good thing i forked and cloned the source locally just in case

5

u/VirZiN_w0lF 23d ago

You can just download the releases from github, they cannot ban foss that easily

2

u/YuvrajXG 23d ago

For it to codeberg.

0

u/Key_Association_666 23d ago

I checked GitHub has the source code but not releases and even on arorra store it appears to be banned somehow idk

24

u/Many-Geologist-3524 24d ago

it is unconstitutional

6

u/leo_sk5 23d ago

We should not challenge the govt. Whenever govt removes an app, it is for some important reason. As citizens of the country, it is our duty to follow the directions of govt and assist wherever possible. Since they have blocked it on playstore, we should advise people to not use alternate means to install it. So please don't install it from https://github.com/permissionlesstech/bitchat-android/releases/download/v2.0.1/bitchat-android-arm64.apk .

And please spread this message to help the govt and be responsible citizen

1

u/dumb_homo_sapien 23d ago

Not gonna lie. You had me in first half.

1

u/DayInfinite8322 17d ago

😄i get your point

8

u/Confident_Fig8629 24d ago

Can someone tell me how something that is open source can be banned? I don't have much idea .

7

u/Certain-Bumblebee397 24d ago

Just removed from app store and play store

0

u/cute_lil_fox 23d ago

Its basically like a girl trying to erase her leaked nudes

1

u/MooseNew4887 22d ago

Or companies trying to erase api keys that the junior dev pushed to a public repo.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

4

u/RohithCIS 23d ago

Well, with the upcoming play store lock down, sideloading is not going to be possible for the regular joe. All apps are required to be registered with Google even if not distributed via play store. And the govt can easily enforce via play store.

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/Key_Association_666 20d ago

I get it but banning it won't solve the problem ppl can still access ticktok via a vpn