Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has alleged that the Indian government made multiple requests to Twitter regarding the farmers' protests and journalists critical of the government. Dorsey claimed that the government exerted pressure and threatened to raid Twitter employees.
The Indian government, however, has dismissed these allegations as false, stating that Twitter was a repeat violator under Dorsey's leadership.
Dorsey made these allegations during an interview on June 12 with the YouTube channel Breaking Points. He mentioned that India had requested actions such as shutting down Twitter in the country, raiding employees' homes, and closing Twitter offices if the platform didn't comply.
Dorsey compared his experience in India to other countries, including Turkey, which he described as similar. In response to Dorsey's claims, the Minister of State for IT tweeted that Dorsey's Twitter regime had difficulty accepting the sovereignty of Indian law.
Centre Denies Dorsey's Claims
Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, denied Dorsey's comments on Twitter, calling them outright lies. Chandrasekhar referred to Dorsey's tenure as CEO as a dubious period in Twitter's history.
Chandrasekhar refuted Dorsey's allegations, stating that no one was raided or sent to jail. He emphasized that the focus was on ensuring compliance with Indian laws. Chandrasekhar claimed that Twitter repeatedly violated Indian law from 2020 to 2022, only finally complying in June 2022.
Chandrasekhar criticized Dorsey's Twitter regime for not accepting the sovereignty of Indian law and behaving as if the laws did not apply to them.
Regarding Dorsey's example of receiving takedown requests, the Minister mentioned the misinformation surrounding the farmers' protest in January 2021, stating that Twitter had a problem removing misinformation from the platform in India. He highlighted the level of partisan behavior and misuse of power on Twitter during that period.
Farmers' protests
During the height of the farmers' protest in February 2021, the Indian government requested Twitter to remove approximately 1,200 accounts related to the protest, suspected to have links to Khalistan sympathizers or support from Pakistan. The government questioned the platform's neutrality when Dorsey "liked" tweets supporting the protest at the time, according to The Hindu.
This is not the first time the Indian government has faced such allegations. India is the highest requester of user account data globally, surpassing Twitter's largest markets, the United States and Japan.
Jack Dorsey, former Twitter CEO, speaks about the challenges he faced from Govts across the world, including India and the United States… It is not surprising, because under Dorsey, Twitter had turned rouge, disregarding laws of the sovereigns they operated in, muzzling freedom… pic.twitter.com/dfcWVEXNQb
— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) June 13, 2023
However, the exact number of user account requests sent by the Indian government to Twitter in 2022 remains unclear, as the company did not publish any report for that year. In July-December 2021, during which India was allegedly the top requester, Twitter said it received 2,211 requests for 7,768 accounts.
(With inputs from IANS)
