homebusiness Newscompanies NewsJack Dorsey says India threatened Twitter office closures during farmers’ protests, govt calls it outright lie
Jack Dorsey says India threatened Twitter office closures during farmers’ protests, govt calls it outright lie
Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and former CEO, has claimed that the Indian government made many requests to block accounts critical of the government at the time of farmers’ protest in the country. India has called in an "outright lie."
India has strongly refuted statements made by Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey regarding the Indian government's requests to block accounts critical of the government during the farmers' protest that took place in November 2020.
Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, took to Twitter to dismiss Dorsey's statements as "outright lies" and suggested that they were an attempt to deflect attention from Twitter's questionable actions during that period.
The IT minister’s remark came after Dorsey, who stepped down from Twitter's board last year, in an interview with YouTube channel Breaking Points on June 12 said, “India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers protests, around particular journalists which were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India’… ‘we would raid the homes of your employees', which they did; ‘we will shut down your offices if you don't follow suit’. And this is India, a democratic country.”
To this, Chandrasekhar has reacted saying Twitter under Dorsey and his team was in repeated and continuous violations of the Indian law. It was in non-compliance with law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when it finally complied, the minister said.
This is an outright lie by @jack - perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history
Facts and truth@twitter undr Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law… https://t.co/SlzmTcS3Fa— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) June 13, 2023
Chandrasekhar also pointed out that no one went to jail nor was Twitter "shutdown". He alleged that Dorsey’s Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law and it behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it.
In May 2021, Twitter labelled some tweets from accounts tied to the BJP as “manipulated media,” following which Delhi Police raided Twitter’s offices in New Delhi and Gurugram. The IT Ministry had then demanded that Twitter take down these labels, and that it comply with the remaining blocking orders from earlier. The company took a few more tweets down, and called the police actions a form of intimidation.
As claimed by Chandrasekhar in his latest tweet, the government had then too flagged misinformation and reports of “genocide” and asked Twitter to drop them the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation.
The minister today said, “such was the level of partisan behaviour on Twitter under Jack's regime that they had a problem removing misinformation from the platform in India, when they did it themselves when similar events took place in the USA. To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring the compliance of Indian laws.”
The minister today said, “such was the level of partisan behaviour on Twitter under Jack's regime that they had a problem removing misinformation from the platform in India, when they did it themselves when similar events took place in the USA. To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring the compliance of Indian laws.”
#WATCH | On former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey's claim on ‘pressure’ from India, farmer leader Rakesh Tikait says, "We had information that the kind of reach on Facebook and Twitter that was expected on farmers' protest, was not coming. They used to try to stop it at their level.… pic.twitter.com/JMUsoEak4S
— ANI (@ANI) June 13, 2023
Meanwhile, the Karnataka High Court in April 2023 reserved orders on a petition by Twitter challenging ten blocking orders issued by the central government directing it to take down 39 URLs between February 2021 and February 2022.
Chandrasekhar also reiterated the Indian government's then concerns about Twitter's conduct during the farmers' protest, citing evidence of the platform's arbitrary and discriminatory behavior. He said that Twitter, under Jack Dorsey's leadership, violated Indian law and showcased partisan tendencies by selectively "deamplifying" and deplatforming certain individuals in violation of constitutional articles.
He further criticised Twitter for its role in propagating misinformation and assisting in its weaponisation.
He asserted that the government’s policies remain clear for all intermediaries operating in India and compliance with laws is a must to ensure the Internet is safe, trusted and accountable .
First Published: Jun 13, 2023 10:45 AM IST
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