Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a stunning allegation claimed that the micro-blogging platform had faced government pressure and threats of a shutdown during farmers' protest, a statement that evoked a sharp rebuttal from Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar who termed it an "outright lie". Rejecting the claims, the Minister of State for IT tweeted that Dorsey's Twitter regime "had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law".
"No one went to jail nor was Twitter 'shutdown',"
Chandrasekhar said.
Jack Dorsey, co-founder, and former Twitter CEO has alleged
that during the farmers' protest, the Indian government pressurised the
microblogging platform and threatened to shut down Twitter in India and raid
the homes of employees if it didn't listen to the demands of the government.
Chandrasekhar tweeted that: "@twitter under Dorsey and
his team were in repeated and continuous violations of India 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".
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, Chandrasekhar said.
"India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure
that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India," the
Minister said.
During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of
misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake, the
Minister said adding that the government was obligated to remove misinformation
from the platform as it had the potential to further inflame the situation
based on fake news.
"Such was the level of partisan behavior 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 USA," Chandrasekhar said.
This is an outright lie by @jack - perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) June 13, 2023
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
To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to
jail, and the focus was entirely on ensuring compliance with Indian laws.
"There is ample evidence now in the public domain about
Jack's Twitter's arbitrary, blatantly partisan, and discriminatory conduct and
misuse of its power on its platform during that period," he further said.
"Twitter under Dorsey was not just violating Indian law, but was partisan in how it was using "de amplify" and de-platforming of some arbitrarily in violation of Art 14, 19 of our constitution and also assisting in weaponising of misinformation," he said.