Dorsey alleges Indian government threatened to shut down Twitter during farmers' protests in winter of 2021.
The Government of India said former Twitter Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Jack Dorsey has “lied” about the Indian government putting pressure on the social media platform and threatening to shut it down during the farmers’ protest in winter of 2021.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Indian Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology called Dorsey's words "an outright lie" and noted that Dorsey and his team repeatedly violated Indian law.
“As a matter of fact, they were in non-compliance with the law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied...No one went to jail nor was twitter “shutdown,”
stressed the Minister.
Jack Dorsey previously claimed in an interview with the YouTube channel Breaking Points that during the farmers' protests, the Indian government "pressurized us [Twitter]" and threatened to shut down the social network in India and to raid the homes of the platform's employees.
During the interview, when asked if he had faced any pressure from foreign governments, Dorsey replied that “India is one of the countries, which had many requests around farmers’ protests, around particular journalists, which were critical of the government”. Dorsey stepped down from Twitter’s board last year.
Rajiv Chandrasekhar responded to Dorsey's accusations by pointing out that India, as a sovereign nation, has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in the country.
“During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake. The Government of India was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news,”
he tweeted.
The Minister noted that no one was raided or sent to jail, and the agency's focus was only on ensuring the compliance of Indian laws. According to him, there is now “ample evidence now in public domain about Jacks twitter’s arbitrary, blatantly partisan and discriminatory conduct and misuse of its power on its platform during that period.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2021, had announced a repeal of the three controversial farm laws after thousands of farmers protested and camped at Delhi’s border against the three laws. Modi also admitted the government’s failure in convincing farmers and appealed to them to call off their year-long protest. The three laws were later withdrawn, in the winter session of Parliament.
Source: Hindu Business Line
