New Delhi: Union Minister Rajiv Chandrasekhar calls Twitter co-founder claims against the Modi government an “outright lie.” Jack Dorsey made strong allegations against the Modi government and stated that they were pressured to block accounts of journalists criticizing the government in relation to the farmers protest.
Dorsey, in an interview with Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball—hosts of ‘Breaking Points’—talked about his experience dealing with pressure from foreign governments. He revealed that India had “many requests” during the time of the farmers protest and about “particular journalists that were critical of the government.”
In his conversation with Enjeti and Ball, the former Twitter CEO said the BJP-led government threatened to shut down Twitter in India, “which is a very big market for us,” and also threatened to raid the homes of his employees —”which they did,” he said. Dorsey said the government said it would shut down their India offices if they didn’t follow suit. “And this is India, a democratic country,” Dorsey told his interviewers.
He also spoke of a similar experience in Nigeria where the company “could not” put people on the ground because they feared the Nigerian government.
Dorsey talked about the tension between Twitter as a free-speech commitment and a for-profit company. He said under Elon Musk’s principle— “of anything being allowed by law on the platform”— it sets up a dynamic where countries like India and Turkey can make requests to take down journalists’ accounts and supply them with contact information to remove them from the platform.
Chandrasekhar, in his tweet, rubbished Dorsey’s claims and said Twitter under Dorsey violated Article 14 and 19 of the Constitution and assisted in “weaponsing” misinformation in the country.
“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,” he wrote. He also added that no one was sent to jail nor was Twitter shutdown but rather, Twitter under his “regime” had a problem of accepting “the sovereignty of Indian law,” and behaved as if Indian law did not apply to them.
When asked to provide instances of foreign governments exerting pressure on his company in the interview, Dorsey shared examples to help the audience understand the experience of being approached by some of the world’s most influential individuals demanding things from Twitter.
He mentioned that Turkey, like India, exhibited similar behavior and that the Turkish government also issued threats of shutting down Twitter, as the platform had frequently engaged in legal disputes with the government and emerged victorious.
The farmers expressed their discontent by participating in protests against the government’s implementation of three laws that relaxed regulations regarding the sale, pricing, and storage of agricultural goods. These regulations had been in place for many years, safeguarding the farmers from the unrestricted market.
The protests were peaceful until 26 January 2021, when protesters broke through police barricades to enter Delhi and clashed with the police. A group of protesters breached Red Fort and hoisted the Sikh religious flag alongside the national flag. One protester, Navreet Singh Hundal, 26, died in the violence. Delhi police said nearly 400 police officers were injured.
The police in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Haryana states filed cases of sedition and promoting communal disharmony against six senior journalists and editors – Rajdeep Sardesai, Mrinal Pande, Zafar Agha, Paresh Nath, Anant Nath, Vinod K Jose, and a Congress party politician, Shashi Tharoor – for allegedly “misreporting” the facts around the death of the protester. Delhi police also filed a case against them.
Siddharth Varadarajan, the founder editor of The Wire, faced legal action by the Uttar Pradesh police on 31 January, 2021. They charged him with promoting hostility between communities and making statements that could harm national unity. The charges stemmed from a tweet in which Varadarajan shared a news report regarding the claims made by the deceased protester’s family. The family contended that the protester had died due to gunshot wounds, whereas the police asserted that his death occurred as a result of his tractor overturning, Human Rights Watch reports.