Union Minister Slams Jack Dorsey's Claims Of Government Control Over Twitter
Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey recently made bombshell claims about how the Indian government attempted to exert control over the social media giant, highlighting concers surrounding free speech and coverage of certain events. Now, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar had hit back at Dorsey, dismissing his claims.
What Jack Dorsey said
"India had many requests of us around the farmers' protest, around journalists who were critical of the govt and manifested in ways such as we were shut down in India, which is a very large market for us," Dorsey said during on a YouTube show called "Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar."
He added that the "homes of a few employees [were] raided" in India, and that the government of India's messaging was "we will shut down your offices if you don't follow." When the BJP alleged that a "toolkit" containing manipulated media was being circulated on social media platforms during the farmers' protests, scrutiny on social media platforms intensified.
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In May 2021, Twitter's offices in India were raided and homes of many employees were also searched by the government, FE reported. During the interview, Dorsey expressed displeasure over how India may be compared to Turkey instead of the United States on the basis of similar requests (made by Turkey) to take down the accounts of certain journalists or to provide their account information for action.
What Indian government said
The Indian government has dismissed these claims. In a tweet, Rajeev Chandrasekhar called Dorsey's words an "outright lie," adding that he was making these claims to "brush out a dubious period [in] Twitter's history."
Chandrasekhar said that Dorsey and his team "were in repeated and continuous violations of Indian law." He added that they were in "non-compliancce with law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only [in] June 2022" that Twitter complied.
He also alleged that the Twitter behaved as if the "laws of India did not apply to it," adding that "India has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India."
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Referring to content takedowns, Chandrasekhar said that a lot of misinformation was being spread during the farmers' protests, compelling the government to take action on the same.
Even then, India remains among the top 4 countries to send Twitter legal directions to remove content on its behalf... and this is just from the transparency disclosure report from January to June 2022. Other countries that made similar requests were the United States, France, Japan, and Germany.
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