India: The former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of social media giant Twitter, Jack Dorsey, in a startling revelation, today (Tuesday), said that the Nresnd Modi-led Indian government pressurised the Twitter officials to block accounts covering farmer protests and those critical of the BJP government.
Jack Dorsey in an interview with a TV channel said that the Modi government threatened the Twitter officials of raid and arrest of its employees in India if they don’t follow the demands.
While responding to a question if he had faced any pressure from foreign governments, Jack Dorsey replied, “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.”
It is pertinent to mention here that the Modi government hastily passed three controversial farm laws in September 2020 that deregulated farming by completely opening it to corporations. Forty farm unions with tens of thousands of members responded by leading one of the world’s largest demonstrations. The protest was called off on December 9, a full 378 days later, after the Modi regime revoked the laws.
On the other hand, reacting to Jack Dorsey allegation, Indian government claimed that Twitter was violating Indian law. India’s Information and Technology Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a tweet said, “As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with 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’.”
