Government hits back at Jack Dorsey, reminds ex-Twitter CEO of arbitrary, blatantly partisan conduct

Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar has termed as an 'outright lie' the assertion by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that the social media platform company had received 'many requests' from India to block accounts covering farmers' protests and those critical of the government. 

Reacting to Dorsey's allegation made during an interview with an anti-establishment Youtube show 'Breaking Points', the minister slammed Dorsey for, perhaps, attempting to brush out that very dubious period of Twitter's history.

In the interview, when questioned about potential influence from foreign governments, Dorsey, who resigned from Twitter's board in the previous year, responded, "India for example, India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers protests, around particular journalists which were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India’… ‘we would raid the homes of your employees', which they did; ‘we will shut down your offices if you don't follow suit’. And this is India, a democratic country."

Laying out some facts and truth, Chandrasekhar said: "Twitter under Dorsey and his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact, they were in non-compliance with the law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied." 

"No one went to jail nor was Twitter 'shutdown'. Dorsey's 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," he added.

The Union Minister recalled how there was a lot of misinformation during the farmers' protests in January 2021. 

"The government was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news. 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 US," the minister said.

Setting the record straight, Chandrasekhar said, "No one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring compliance of Indian laws. There is ample evidence now in the public domain about 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 de-platforming of some arbitrarily in violation of Art 14,19 of our Constitution and also assisting in weaponising of misinformation. Our government's policies remain clear for all Intermediaries operating in India - compliance with laws to ensure Internet is safe trusted and accountable," he added.

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