Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s stunning allegation that the micro-blogging platform had faced government pressure and threats of shutdown during farmers’ protest has been met with criticism on social media, with many questioning the timing of the claim. Few users linked the statement to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent US visit while others warned against “hit jobs” in the run up to Lok Sabha elections 2024.
Dorsey, co-founder and former Twitter CEO, has alleged that during the farmers’ protest the Indian government pressurised the platform and threatened to shut down Twitter in India, raid the homes of employees if it didn’t listen to what was being told.
“It manifested in ways such as: ‘We will shut Twitter down in India’, which is a very large market for us; ‘we will raid the homes of your employees’, which they did; And this is India, a democratic country,” Dorsey said in an interview with YouTube news show Breaking Points.
His claims prompted Twitter users to question the timing and motive of the allegations.
Why did @jack not speak out all these months? Why this anti-India rant after @RahulGandhi visited US? What transpired in their alleged meeting? This will boometand on the Congress badly.
— Jiten Gajaria (@jitengajaria) June 13, 2023
Expect a long season of orchestrated “hit jobs” till 2024. All IOUs have been invoked and every axis activated. The challenge for #NarendraModi is even bigger than what he faced in the run upto 2014. #JackDorsey— GhoseSpot (@SandipGhose) June 13, 2023
Pappu didn't go to USA to do timepass, also he's been out of sight since last 6-7 days & there are reports that he had secret meetings at white house & other imp anti India elements as well.So @jack alleging dictatorship in India shouldn't surprise anyone, it's part of the same…
— Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) June 13, 2023
Rubbishing the claims, Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted that Dorsey’s Twitter regime “had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law”.
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
During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake, the minister said, adding that the government was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform as 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 USA,” Chandrasekhar said.
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