‘Outright lie’ by Jack Dorsey: Rajeev Chandrasekhar reacts to claim of India threatening to shut down Twitter
2 min read 13 Jun 2023, 08:59 AM ISTUnion Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has called Jack Dorsey's claim of India threatening to shut down Twitter an 'outright lie'.
PremiumRajeev Chandrasekhar has said that it is an “outright lie" by Jack Dorsey to claim that India had threatened to shut down Twitter. His statement comes after the Twitter co-founder claimed that India had threatened to shut down the company if it did not block the accounts criticising the Narendra Modi government during the Farmers' Protest.
Jack Dorsey and his team at Twitter, according to Rajeev Chandrasekhar, were found to be repeatedly and continuously violating Indian law. Their non-compliance with the law persisted from 2020 to 2022, and it was not until June 2022 that they finally adhered to it.
Despite these violations, no one from Twitter was imprisoned, and the platform was not shut down, Chandrasekhar added while saying that.there was a notable issue with Dorsey's Twitter administration recognizing the authority of Indian law. They seemed to behave as if the laws of India did not apply to them.
As a sovereign nation, India has the right to ensure that all companies operating within its borders abide by its laws, said the Union Minister on Twitter. During the protests in January 2021, Twitter was plagued with misinformation, including false reports of genocide, he added. It was imperative for the Government of India to remove such misinformation from the platform to prevent the situation from escalating due to the dissemination of fake news, he pointed out.
Under Jack Dorsey's leadership, Twitter demonstrated a significant level of partisan behaviour, Chandrasekhar continued to say while saying that the company.had struggled to remove misinformation from the platform in India while taking action against similar events in the United States. This inconsistency raised concerns about Twitter's arbitrary and discriminatory conduct, as well as the misuse of its power on its platform during that period, he added.