Co-founder Jack Dorsey claimed that the Indian government had threatened to shut down Twitter unless it restricted accounts critical of the government's handling of farmer protests. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi called this claim an "outright lie."
On Monday, Dorsey, who stepped down as CEO of Twitter in 2021, stated that India also threatened the company with employee raids if it did not comply with government requests to remove specific posts.
"It showed up in ways like: We will discontinue Twitter in India, a significant market for us; We will search your employees' homes, which they did; And this is India, a democratic nation," Dorsey stated in an interview with Breaking Points, a YouTube news program.
Delegate Pastor for Data Innovation Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a highest level authority in PM Modi's administration, blew up against Dorsey accordingly, considering his declarations an "through and through lie".
"Nobody went to prison nor was Twitter 'closed down'. In a tweet, he stated, "The Twitter regime of Dorsey had difficulty accepting the sovereignty of Indian law."
Dorsey's remarks again put the focus on the battles looked by unfamiliar innovation goliaths working under PM Modi's standard. His government has frequently criticized Google, Facebook, and Twitter for either failing to take adequate measures to combat fake or "anti-India" content on their platforms or for not adhering to regulations.
Because it is unusual for global companies operating in India to publicly criticize the government, the remarks made by the former CEO of Twitter attracted a lot of attention. Last year, Xiaomi in a court recording said India's monetary wrongdoing office compromised its leaders with "actual brutality" and pressure, a charge which the organization denied.
Dorsey also mentioned similar pressure from Nigerian and Turkish governments, both of which had restricted the platform at various times over the years prior to lifting those restrictions.
Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk in a $44 billion (generally Rs. 3,62,495 crore) in the previous year.
Chandrasekhar claimed that Dorsey and his team at Twitter had repeatedly broken Indian law. He added that Twitter had been compliant since June 2022 without naming Musk.
Huge tech versus PM Modi
PM Modi and his clergymen are productive clients of Twitter, yet free discourse activists say his organization resorts to inordinate control of content it believes is disparaging of its working. India keeps up with its substance expulsion orders are pointed toward safeguarding clients and sway of the state.
During the public spat with Twitter in 2021, PM Modi's government requested an "emergency blocking" of dozens of accounts and the "provocative" Twitter hashtag "#ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide." At the time, farmers' organizations were holding demonstrations against new agriculture laws, one of the PM Modi government's biggest problems.
The demands of the farmers were eventually met by the government.
Twitter initially complied with the government's requests, but after restoring most of the accounts, officials threatened legal action, citing "insufficient justification."
In ensuing weeks, police visited a Twitter office as a feature of one more test connected to labeling of some decision party posts as controlled. At the time, Twitter stated that staff safety was a concern.
In his interview, Dorsey stated that during the farmer protests, many requests to remove content from India were made "around particular journalists that were critical of the government."
India's World Press Freedom Index ranking has dropped to 161 out of 180 countries, its lowest ever since PM Modi took office in 2014.