Jack Dorsey’s decentralized peer-to-peer messaging app Bitchat has witnessed a surge in utilization amongst Ugandans forward of an important normal election in 2026.
Abstract
- Bitchat-related searches on Google have surged in Uganda over the previous days.
- Opposition chief Bobi Wine has urged locals to make use of Bitchat to bypass potential web shutdowns.
Based on Google Developments knowledge, search curiosity for “Bitchat” in Uganda has soared over the previous few days.
Standard search phrases throughout the identical interval included “bitchat apk,” “bitchat mesh,” “what’s bitchat,” and “the best way to use bitchat.” All have been marked as breakout subjects, that means Google registered a big improve of their search quantity over a brief span of time.
Bitchat is a decentralized messaging app that depends on Bluetooth mesh networks to allow safe, encrypted communication between close by smartphones with no need web entry.
Each cellphone within the community acts as a relay node, and messages are saved inside the gadgets themselves as a substitute of a server. In the meantime, customers don’t want a cellphone quantity, SIM card, or electronic mail tackle to make use of the app.
Over the previous months, Bitchat has discovered traction in jurisdictions grappling with political unrest and censorship, together with Nepal, Madagascar, and Indonesia, the place protesters used the app to bypass authorities surveillance and connectivity blackouts.
Bitchat grew to become a speaking level in Uganda after politician and opposition chief Bobi Wine started encouraging locals to put in the app as a countermeasure to any try by the ruling authorities to chop off communication companies heading into the elections.
“As everyone knows, the regime is plotting an web shutdown within the coming days, like they’ve achieved in all earlier elections. They swap off the web with a view to block communication and be certain that residents don’t organise, confirm their election outcomes and demand for accountability over the huge election theft,” Wine wrote in a Dec. 30 X publish.
Wine is at the moment main a problem in opposition to long-time President Yoweri Museveni, whose administration, throughout the 2016 and 2021 elections, blocked entry to the web for 5 days starting on the eve of voting.
Stories from December 2025 point out that the Electoral Fee and safety businesses have once more mentioned a short lived shutdown to curb what they described as misinformation, hate speech, and sectarianism on social media platforms.
Wine, nonetheless, argues that the true motive behind such measures is to forestall opposition supporters from transmitting Declaration of Outcomes Types, which function the official data of vote counts from every polling station.
“It is possible for you to to ship photos of DR Types and share every other important data to particular or different customers,” Wine added as he urged his supporters to obtain Bitchat.
Based on knowledge from Chrome-Stats, Bitchat downloads have spiked over the previous week, with greater than 32,000 new installations. Up to now 24 hours alone, the app recorded 4,252 downloads.
