New Delhi: Twitter Founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey in an interview with YouTube channel Breaking Points alleged that the Narendra Modi government threatened to wind the social media platform down and conducted raids on employees' homes as it refused to comply with the Centre's demands to block accounts during the farmers' protests in early 2021.
The government however lashed out at Dorsey saying it is an attempt to "brush out that very dubious period of Twitter's history".
Slamming Dorsey, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said that no one went to jail nor was Twitter shut down in the country.
"This is an outright lie by @jack -- perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of Twitter's history. Twitter under Dorsey and his team were in repeated and continuous violations of the India law," Chandrasekhar said in a tweet.
The Minister said that as a matter of fact, Twitter was in non-compliance with law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 "and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied".
"To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring the compliance of Indian laws. Dorsey's Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law. It behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it," Chandrasekhar noted.
In the interview, Dorsey said that India put pressure on the platform.
"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," Dorsey said on the channel when asked to share some examples of pressure from foreign governments during his tenure, before Elon Musk took over. "India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers' protest, around particular journalists that were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as 'we will shut Twitter down in India', which is a very large market for us," Dorsey added.
"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," Dorsey said on the channel when asked to share some examples of pressure from foreign governments during his tenure, before Elon Musk took over.
"India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers' protest, around particular journalists that were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as 'we will shut Twitter down in India', which is a very large market for us," Dorsey added.
In a reply, Chandrasekhar said that India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India.
"During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake. The government was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news," explained the Minister.
"Such was the level of partisan behaviour on Twitter under Jack 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 US," he said.
According to the Minister, there is ample evidence now in public domain about Jack's Twitter's "arbitrary, blatantly partisan and discriminatory conduct and misuse of its power on its platform during that period".
"Twitter under Dorsey was not just violating Indian law, but was partisan in how it was using 'de-amplify' and deplatforming of some arbitrarily in violation of Articles 14,19 of our constitution and also assisting in weaponising of misinformation," he further said.
"All social media intermediaries operating in India have to comply with laws to ensure that the internet is safe, trusted and accountable," said the Minister.
Opposition parties on Tuesday slammed the BJP-led NDA government over former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's claim that it was threatened to shut down its offices or raid homes of its employees.
Veteran leader and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal took to Twitter and slammed the government saying:
"Jack Dorsey Ex-Twitter CEO said : BJP government during farmers protests threatened. To shut down Twitter-India offices. Raid homes of Twitter-India employees. Minister (Rajeev Chandrasekhar) denies. Some have no reason to lie. Others every reason to lie."
Even Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi hit back at the BJP government and said:
"Social media rules quite strict in India, says Elon Musk. The billionaire owner of Twitter said that if it came to choosing between complying with the law and having Twitter employees jailed, he would choose compliance. So everyone screaming about what Dorsey said as incorrect, please sit down."
She also attached the link to a news report of Musk's claims.
In another tweet, Chaturvedi said:
"Twitter under Dorsey and his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law' say MoS IT. Lol, Yeah the law they broke was to allow hate speech and rabid BJP agenda. But there was no crackdown or compliance issues since it supported their agenda. The minute people and opposition started to fight back using the platform, the government started to crackdown! So please, spare this little sermon."
"BTW even Elon Musk has on record spoken about GoI's multiple requests to take down content or suspend accounts that goes against his own belief regarding absolute FoS (Freedom of Speech). They comply, since GoI (Government of India)," she added.
Farmers from several states staged protests at the borders of Delhi for over a year from November 2020. Prime Minister Narendra Modi admitted the failure in convincing the farmers and appealed to them to call off their year-long protest. In the winter session of Parliament, the three laws were withdrawn.
For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App.
Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic.
