Jack Dorsey, former Twitter CEO, gave an interview to the YouTube channel Breaking Points which has gone viral. During the interview, Mr. Dorsey was asked about the pressures he had received from foreign governments during his time as CEO of Twitter. He said that Twitter got a lot of requests from the Indian government to act against accounts covering the 2020-21 farmers’ protests. Dorsey claimed that the Indian government also urged Twitter to take action against those journalists who were critics of the government at the time. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has alleged that the Indian government had threatened to shut the platform and raid employees' houses in the country. Twitter was also asked to censor journalists critical of the government, he alleged.
In the interview, Mr Dorsey said "countries like India and Turkey made many requests to us to take down journalists' accounts that give tactile information and remove them from the platform". He added that he was "surprised at the level of engagement and requests" by governments of the world to censor content on the platform during his time. "India, for example, was a country that had many requests around the farmers' protests, around particular journalists that were critical of the government," he said. "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," Mr Dorsey told the show's hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti.
Rubbishing his claims and denying the allegations, the union minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar said that Twitter was in repeated violations of Indian law and started complying with Indian laws only from June 2022 and also the Dorsey’s Twitter regime “had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law”.
Terming it as an “outright lie”, union minister of state for entrepreneurship, skill development, electronics and technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar hit out at the allegations levelled by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey that the micro-blogging platform had faced government pressure and threats of shutdown during farmers’ protest.
He added, “Between 2020-2022, Twitter was violating Indian law multiple times. It started complying with the law only in 2022. During that entire period, nobody went to jail, and nobody was raided. Jack Dorsey knowing very well that Twitter did not comply with any law and didn’t face any consequence, is today lying and making stories about raids and arrests”.
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— Srinivas BV (@srinivasiyc) June 12, 2023
"During farmer protest, Modi govt pressurized us and said we will shut down your offices, raid your employees' homes, which they did if you don’t follow suit."
- Jack Dorsey, former Twitter CEO pic.twitter.com/tOyCfyDWcz