Union Information and Technology Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on June 13 strongly refuted the former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s claim that the social media platform Twitter came under pressure from the Indian Government during the farmers’ protest.
Taking to Twitter, Chandrasekhar said, “This is an outright lie by @jack – perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history (sic).”
Jack Dorsey has claimed that Twitter had received “many requests” from Indian authorities to block accounts covering farmers’ protests and those critical of the Government.
He further said that Indian authorities threatened to shut down Twitter’s offices in the country if it did not comply with its requests. “It manifested in ways that … [they said] we will raid the homes of their employees, which they did; we will shut down your offices if you don’t follow suit,” he said.
“No one went to jail nor was twitter “shutdown”. Dorseys Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law. It behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it. India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India.
During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake. GoI was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news,” the minister said.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that any takedown notices sent to Twitter during the farmers’ protest were in response to misinformation and fake news circulating on the platform. Chandrasekhar said that India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India.
The Union minister further said that “Such was the level of partisan behaviour on Twitter under Jack regime, that they had a problem removing misinformation from the platform in India, when they did it themselves when similar events took place in the USA. To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring the compliance of Indian laws. There is ample evidence now in public domain about Jacks twitter’s arbitrary, blatantly partisan and discriminatory conduct and misuse of its power on its platform during that period.”
“Twitter under Dorsey was not just violating Indian law, but was partisan in how it was using “deamplify” and deplatforming of some arbitrarily in violation of Article 14, 19 of our constitution and also assisting in weaponising of misinformation. Our govts policies remain clear for all Intermediaries operating in India – compliance with laws to ensure Internet is Safe& Trusted, Accountable,” the minister said.
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