Over 48,000 Nepalis have downloaded Bittat, block CEO Jack Dorsey’s peer-to-peer messaging app amid a series of violent protests against corruption and short-lived social media bans.
According to Bitcoin’s open source developer CalleBtc, it follows a similar increase in downloads in Indonesia last week after corruption-related protests broke out.
“Last week we observed a sudden spike in the download of Vichat from Indonesia during the national protest. Today we see even bigger spikes from Nepal during government corruption and youth protests over social media ban,” CalleBTC posted on X on Wednesday.
Nepal had less than 3,344 downloads last Wednesday before the tally surged to 48,781 on Monday, according to a chart shared by CalleBTC.
Sharp Rise was supported by a short-lived social media ban blocking blocks on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube. Nepal initially imposed a ban that would curb the rapid spread of anti-government content online.
Security forces reacted violently with live fire and tear gas, causing at least 19 deaths and hundreds of people injured. The government building where KP Prime Minister Sharmaori lived was also attacked.
The OLI is at the heart of allegations of corruption, including misuse of public funds and lack of transparency around political decision-making. He has now resigned from his post.
The Nepal and Indonesian cases could show an increasingly changing citizen growth trend into a decentralized, encrypted messaging app (Freedom Technology) to protect themselves from government surveillance and censorship.
Meanwhile, the European Union is approaching passing “chat control” laws that eliminate encrypted messaging, requiring services such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal and others to allow regulators to screen messages before they are sent encrypted.
Legislators of the 15 EU member states have shown support for the bill, and a vote from Germany can determine whether the controversial bill has been passed.
Cryptographic messaging apps act as alternatives
Up until now, the adoption of decentralized, encrypted messaging apps has been driven by users leaving centralized communications platforms that may censor content or impose other restrictions.
The most popular centralized communications platforms are Messenger and WhatsApp. They are run by the social media giant Meta, a centralized, profit-driven company that uses personal data as a product.
Dorsey bitches are rarely born for two months
Dorsey launched the beta version of Bitchat in July. It uses a Bluetooth mesh network for encrypted communications without the Internet.
Related: A distributed social media app to challenge Big Tech’s “walled gardens”
According to the white paper, the network is fully decentralized without dependencies on the central server, account, email address, phone number to register, or infrastructure.
Crypto messages that are far behind the industrial giants
Signal, Nostr-Powered Damus, Sessions, and Status are one of the other messaging apps that attract users in search of a safer and more censor-resistant alternative.
However, in June, decentralized, encrypted messaging apps probably have a long way to go before they can compete with social media giants like Meta, across the entire family of applications, including Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.
The 3.48 billion figure showed a 6% increase from the previous year, indicating that it has not lost momentum in the past 12 months.
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