Indian government threaten to shut Twitter down unless it complie with orders to restrict accounts critical of the government’s handling of farmer protests, co-founder Jack Dorsey said, an accusation PM Narendra Modi’s government called an “outright lie“.
Jack Dorsey, quit as Twitter CEO in 2021, said that India also threaten the company with raids on employees if it did not comply with government requests to take down certain posts.
Jack Dorsey said in an interview with YouTube :
“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; And this is India, a democratic country,”.
Deputy Minister for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a top ranking official in PM Modi’s government, lash out against Jack Dorsey in response, calling his assertions an “outright lie“.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a post on Twitter :
“No one went to jail nor was Twitter ‘shut down’. Dorsey’s Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law,”.
Jack Dorsey’s comments again put the spotlight on the struggles face by foreign technology giants operating under PM Modi’s rule.
Government has often criticize Google, Facebook and Twitter for not doing enough to tackle fake or “anti-India” content on their platforms, or for not complying with rules.
The former Twitter CEO’s comments drew widespread attention as it is unusual for global companies operating in India to publicly criticise the government.
In 2022, Xiaomi in a court filing said India’s financial crime agency threaten its executives with “physical violence” and coercion, an allegation which the agency denied.
Jack Dorsey also mention similar pressure from governments in Turkey and Nigeria, which had restrict the platform in their nations at different points over the years before lifting those bans.
Twitter was bought by Elon Musk in a $44 billion (approx. Rs. 3,62,495 crore) deal in 2022.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar said Twitter under Jack Dorsey and his team had repeatedly violate Indian law.
He didn’t name Musk, but added Twitter had in compliance since June 2022.
PM Modi and his ministers are prolific users of Twitter, but free speech activists say his administration resorts to excessive censorship of content it thinks is critical of its working.
India maintains its content removal orders are aim at protecting users and sovereignty of the state.
The public spat with Twitter during 2021 saw PM Modi’s government seeking an “emergency blocking” of the “provocative” Twitter hashtag “#ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide” and dozens of accounts.
Farmers groups had protesting against new agriculture laws at the time, one of the biggest challenges face by the PM Modi government.
Government later gave in to the farmers demands.
Twitter initially complied with the government requests but later restore most of the accounts, citing “insufficient justification“, leading to officials threatening legal consequences.
In subsequent weeks, police visit a Twitter office as part of another probe link to tagging of some ruling party posts as manipulated.
Twitter at the time said it was worried about staff safety.
Jack Dorsey in his interview said many India content take down requests during the farmer protests were “around particular journalists that were critical of the government.“
Since Narendra Modi become PM in 2014, India has slid from 140th in World Press Freedom Index to 161 this year, out of 180 countries, its lowest ranking ever.
