How A Picture Shared By Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Led To A Massive Online Controversy In India
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has been on a tour of India this past week, interacting with policymakers, politicians, actors, and more. Unfortunately he¡¯s also managed to land himself in some hot soup because he (or his PR team) didn¡¯t pay enough attention
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has been on a tour of India this past week, interacting with policymakers, politicians, actors, and more. Unfortunately he's also managed to land himself in some hot soup because he (or his PR team) didn't pay enough attention.
Reuters
A photo of Dorsey has been doing the rounds on Twitter for the past two days, from a round table discussion he attended. Alongside prominent women journalists, writers, activists, and others, they were discussing the safety of women online, and on Twitter especially. The problem? He was pictured like this on the social media platform.
During Twitter CEO @jack's visit here, he & Twitter's Legal head @vijaya took part in a round table with some of us women journalists, activists, writers & @TwitterIndia's @amritat to discuss the Twitter experience in India. A very insightful, no-words-minced conversation ? pic.twitter.com/LqtJQEABgV
¡ª Anna MM Vetticad (@annavetticad) November 18, 2018
That's a picture of the Twitter CEO standing with the women from the meetup, holding a poster that says, "Smash Brahminical Patriarchy."
As you can expect, the right-leaners on Twitter were not pleased. They accused Dorsey of everything from bigotry, to racism, to promoting hate speech.
Shame on you for maligning an Indian community and being part of this Hate campaign of #brahminphobia with a foreigner! Your hatred comes out openly! How can you malign a peaceful community like this?@annavetticad @jsaideepak @pGurus1 https://t.co/xT5aom0JRw
¡ª Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) November 19, 2018
Do you realise that this picture has potential of causing communal riots at a time when several States are going to Assembly Elections in India. Even now an apology is not offered. Actually its a fit case for registration of a criminal case for attempt to destablise the nation.
¡ª Sandeep Mittal, I.P.S. (@smittal_ips) November 20, 2018
Doesn't concerted vilification of #Brahmins qualify as REVERSE CASTIESM?
¡ª Sudheendra Kulkarni (@SudheenKulkarni) November 20, 2018
We must firmly reject casteism in all forms -- whether it's practised by 'high castes' against 'low castes' or by FAKE PROGRESSIVES.
Let's not be blind, or condone, casteism by - and among - 'Dalits'.
Had @jack held a poster that screamed 'SMASH MUSLIM PATRIARCHY', gifted to him by a victim of sanctioned domestic violence, FGM, or triple talaq, one among that gaggle would have snatched it off his hands and cried: "Stop this selective outrage. It's an internal matter for them."
¡ª Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) November 20, 2018
Now, many of you may have hoped Twitter would stand behind the photo, perhaps simply clarifying that the poster was a gift pertaining to the event. Well they did the latter, but sadly not the former. Twitter's legal head was quick to deliver an unofficial apology, before the company's India team also issued one of its own.
I'm very sorry for this. It's not relective of our views. We took a private photo with a gift just given to us - we should have been more thoughtful. Twitter strives to be an impartial platform for all. We failed to do that here & we must do better to serve our customers in India
¡ª Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) November 19, 2018
It is not a statement from Twitter or our CEO, but a tangible reflection of our company's efforts to see, hear, and understand all sides of important public conversations that happen on our service around the world.
¡ª Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) November 19, 2018
"It is not a statement from Twitter or our CEO," Twitter said, "but a tangible reflection of our company's efforts to see, hear, and understand all sides of important public conversations that happen on our service around the world."
Twitter representatives later reached out to us with a statement saying, "The sentiments expressed on the poster do not reflect the views of Twitter as a company or Jack as the CEO, and we regret that this picture has detracted from an otherwise insightful trip to India."
"We are proud of the fact that Twitter is a platform where marginalised voices can be seen and heard, but we also have a public commitment to being apolitical. We realise that this photo may not accurately represent that commitment."
Now, whether or not I agree with Twitter's stance on the matter, there is one fact here that transcends all religious and racial boundaries. Someone at Twitter fell asleep on the job.
The poster wasn't pictured in a "private photo" as Vijaya Gadde seems to indicate. It was presented to Dorsey by a Dalit activist at the event, speaking out about the vitriolic social media experience people from her community experience every day. More importantly though, that photo was clicked by a Twitter India representative and forwarded to the participants to post if they wanted to.
So Twitter, unwilling to take an actual stance on the issue, decided it was still cool to have their CEO pose in a context that clearly comes down on one side of the debate. Yet they still sent out the photo that damned them the most? I mean, the entire event was off the record, so that photo might have never seen the light of day if they hadn't sent it out.
Yeah, so someone at Twitter India might be getting fired. Either they're satisfied after having been able to push their agenda, or they're really regretting not paying more attention.
