Jack Dorsey alleges govt pressure to censor tweets; ‘outright lie,’ says Centre

The Centre on Tuesday (June 13) strongly rebutted allegations made by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey that the microblogging site received “many requests” from India to censor accounts critical of the government and those reporting on farmers’ protests, and that there had been threats of shutting down the platform in India.

Union IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a tweet called the comment as an “outright lie by Jack Dorsey, perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of Twitter’s history”.

This is an outright lie by @jack – perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history

Facts and truth@twitter undr Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law… https://t.co/SlzmTcS3Fa

— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) June 13, 2023

Speaking in an interview on the YouTube channel Breaking Points on Monday (June 12), Dorsey was asked if he had faced any pressure from foreign governments.

He 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.”

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In his long tweet, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “Facts and Truth. Twitter under Dorsey and his team were in repeated and continuous violation of India law. 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’.”

“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.

“During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake. GOI was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news,” the IT minister said.

Accusing Twitter of “partisan behaviour,” Chandrasekhar said the social media site had a “problem removing misinformation from the platform in India, when they did it themselves when similar events took place in the USA.”

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“To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring the compliance of Indian laws,” the tweet said.

The minister said, “There is ample evidence now in the public domain about Jack’s twitter’s arbitrary, blatantly partisan n 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 deplatforming of some arbitrarily in violation of Article 14,19 of our constitution and also assisting in weaponising of misinformation. Our govt’s policies remain clear for all Intermediaries operating in India – compliance with laws to ensure Internet is Safe and Trusted, Accountable,” he added.

(With inputs from agencies)