Don?t dictate terms; obey Indian laws, if you want to operate here: Vembu

Sridhar Vembu, the billionaire founder of Zoho, says social media platforms must follow the laws of the land and stop dictating terms. According to Vembu, social media platforms are already doing the censorship. “I want to point out the origin of the COVID issue. US social media platforms, including Twitter, censored all the discussions that this virus could have come from a lab, something that is being considered now. So for them to turn around and accuse the Indian Government of something is just hypocritical. If they want to operate in our country, they have to operate according to our laws. They don’t get to make laws here,” said Vembu, in an interview to a moneycontrol.com.

Vembu says social media platforms have no right to give Indians discourse on free speech. “They called the theory that Covid could have come from a lab in China a conspiracy last year. And today, all of the mainstream outlets in the US are covering this without even accepting that they got this wrong last year. So this is why it’s important that the platform does not have the power to determine what is truth. At least the elected governments have some accountability, democratic accountability, the platforms have none. They then hide behind their algorithms. And this is not just an India issue, Germany or France or Australia, all of these countries have the same issue with these platforms. Even the USA has these issues. If an executive of Twitter will testify in front of US Congress, should they not be actually asked to testify in front of the Indian Parliament,” he asked.

On free speech, Vembu says, “That is why we have Parliament’s legislators to enact these laws. That’s why we have governments that’s why we elect governments, this is the appropriate role of government to regulate speech. We cannot have private sector entities regulating these because that is actually dangerous. If Trump had said the sun rises in the east, these platforms would have regulated that speech. That is where it was heading already. Whether or not you agree with their politics, they were making a political decision. You cannot just pretend I’m a technology provider, because they’re not neutral. They have not been neutral.” n