Uganda threatens to block Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat ahead of elections

Uganda’s director of government communications is threatening to block Jack Dorsey’s peer-to-peer decentralised messaging service Bitchat ahead of the country’s presidential elections next week. 

Patro Uganda reports that Nyombi Thembo, the executive director of the Uganda Communications Commission, said the government has the ability to block Bitchat thanks to its technical teams. 

Thembo said yesterday, “We have the highest concentration of software engineers and developers in this country. It is very easy for us to switch off such platforms if the need arises,” according to the NilePost.

He also warned that Bitchat shouldn’t be considered as a means to avoid possible communication restrictions. 

In response to Thembo’s comments, Dorsey simply said, “Interesting,” while one of Bitchat’s pseudonymous open-source developers, “Calle,” was skeptical that Uganda can block the service at all. 

Read more: Nepal protests drive spike in Bitchat downloads

Surge of Ugandans installing Bitchat

Bitchat uses a Bluetooth mesh network that allows users to send and receive messages without the internet, mobile signal, or any account registration.

Its popularity soared during protests in Nepal after a social media crackdown, and also proved popular during protests in Indonesia.

In 2021, an internet blackout was implemented the day before Uganda’s elections and lasted over four days.

Similar restrictions on social media and money transfers have taken place in the past and there are now fresh concerns about another crackdown after Elon Musk’s satellite internet network paused its services in Uganda following a government request.

This fear has led to an increase in Ugandans using Bitchat, with Calle noting a surge of hundreds of thousands of installs across the last few days, equal to 1% of Uganda’s population.

Uganda says there won’t be an internet blackout

Ugandan authorities have denied that they would implement such restrictions during the upcoming election, while Thembo added that reports of an internet blackout were “mere rumours.” 

He says that Starlink was ordered to halt its services as it was operating in the country without a license.

The country’s Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of ICT, Aminah Zawedde, claimed that the government “has not announced, directed, or implemented any decision to shut down the internet during the election period.”

She described reports of an imminent internet blackout as “false and misleading.”

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Uganda’s current president, Yoweri Museveni, has been in power for 40 years, with the fiercest opposition set to come from Robert Kyagulanyi, aka singer Bobi Wine.

During the 2021 internet crackdown, Wine alleged that election fraud took place, and that this couldn’t be communicated during the blackout.

This time around, Wine is encouraging Ugandans to download Bitchat to avoid any potential internet blackout. 

In December, he claimed that the “regime is plotting an internet shutdown in the coming days” and encouraged users to download the app while the internet is still up and running.

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