Jack Dorsey’s claim was labelled an “outright lie” on Twitter by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics & Technology.
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey levelled very serious allegations against the Indian government, alleging that their staff had been threatened with a shutdown and even had their houses raided. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology, referred to the assertion as an “outright lie” on Twitter. He made it clear that nobody from the Twitter crew had been searched or imprisoned.
“This is an outright lie by @jack – perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of Twitter’s history,” declared MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
“@twitter under Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law,” the speaker continued. In actuality, they routinely broke the law between 2020 and 2022, and it wasn’t until June 2022 that they did so.
No one was imprisoned, and Twitter wasn’t “shut down,” according to Chandrasekhar.
“Dorsey’s Twitter regime had trouble accepting the supremacy of Indian law,” he continued. It acted as if Indian law did not apply to it. India has the authority to make sure that all businesses doing business there abide by the rules of that country.
Additionally, Chandrasekhar clarified why Dorsey singled out the farmers’ protest in particular. He asserted that there was a lot of false information spread during the protests and that it was the duty of the administration to remove it.
According to Chandrasekharan, there was a lot of false information spread during the protests in January 2021, including some reports of genocide that were unquestionably false. Because it could have exacerbated the issue based on fake news, GoI was required to erase incorrect information from the platform.
The former Twitter CEO was also criticised by the union minister for conducting business differently in India than they did in the US. According to him, “Under Jack’s regime, there was such a level of partisan behaviour on Twitter that they had a problem taking down false information from the platform in India, even though they did it themselves when similar events occurred in the USA.”
Rajeev Chandrasekharan made a direct reference to Dorsey and alluded to the revelation from the Twitter Files that Dorsey appeared to have covered up some dubious decisions made by the company’s high management.
Chandrasekharan added, “There is ample evidence now in the public domain abt Jacks Twitter’s arbitrary, blatantly partisan n discriminatory conduct and misuse of its power on its platform during that period.”
In addition to breaking Indian law, he continued, “Twitter under Dorsey was partisan in how it was using “deamplify” n deplatforming some people arbitrarily in violation of Art 14, 19 of our constitution and also aiding in weaponizing misinformation.”
The minister went on to say that it is crucial to ensure that “the internet is safe, trusted, and accountable” and that the Indian government’s current regulations are clear for all intermediaries operating in India.
