Fall in line or else…
The Indian government may not have said it in these words, but Twitter’s co-founder and former chief Jack Dorsey insisted that he received threats from the country’s powers-that-be. Dorsey said he received “many requests” from the Indian government to block accounts covering farmers’ protests and of those who spared no digs at the government.
He added that the Indian government threatened the platform with dire consequences and warned Twitter would be shut down. He referred to raids conducted at employees’ homes in the country.
During an interview on YouTube channel, Dorsey said, “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; ‘we will 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”.
A national daily reported that in the first six months of 2021, Twitter was asked by Indian courts and the government to block a little more than 4,900 tweets. The company already blocked over 250 accounts for sharing provocative tweets over the then-ongoing farmers’ protests. Additionally, the company received orders from the government to remove tweets critical of the government’s handling of Covid-19.
Twitter initiated legal action in July 2022 against some of the government missives.
However, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar rebutted Dorsey, saying that under him, Twitter was in “repeated and continuous violations of India law” and occasionally “weaponised misinformation”.
Reacting to Dorsey’s statements, Chandrasekhar said that no one from Twitter was jailed, nor was the platform shut down even though they complied with the Indian rules only in June 2022.
He said on social media:
“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 was quoted as saying. “India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India.” He mentioned that the Centre had to issue takedown orders during the farmers’ protest in 2021 owing to a lot of misinformation and fake reports of genocide.
Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk was equally critical of India’s social media regulations, calling them strict. In April, Musk said he would rather comply with the government’s orders than risk sending Twitter employees to prison.
Also Read: Twitter Turned Rogue During 2020-22: Amit Malviya
