India Threatened Twitter Shutdown, Claims Dorsey; Govt Says ‘Outright Lie’

New Delhi: Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has made explosive claims about the micro-blogging platform facing government pressure and threats of shutdown during the farmers’ protest in India in 2020-21.

Dorsey said recently during an interview to YouTube news show Breaking Points that Twitter was threatened with shutdowns in countries like India, Nigeria and Turkey unless the popular social media company complied with orders to restrict accounts.

“India for example 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,” Dorsey claimed.

The Central government dismissed the serious allegations levelled by the former Twitter CEO as an ‘outright lie’.

Rubbishing Dorsey’s claims, Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill development, Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that Dorsey’s Twitter regime had a “problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law”.

“Between 2020-2022, Twitter was violating Indian law multiple times. It started complying with the law only in 2022. During that entire period, nobody went to jail, and nobody was raided. Jack Dorsey knowing very well that Twitter did not comply with any law and didn’t face any consequence, is today lying and making stories about raids and arrests,” Chandrasekhar said.

Union minister for Information & Broadcasting and Youth Affairs & Sports Anurag Thakur was also vocal about Dorsey’s claims.

“What was said is a blatant lie. Jack Dorsey woke up after years of sleep and wants to cover up his misdeeds. When Twitter was bought by another person (Elon Musk), it was revealed in ‘Twitter Files’ how the platform was being misused. Jack Dorsey has not been able to answer this to date because he was exposed… Several foreign forces wake up when elections approach India,” Thakur said.

The Congress took the opportunity to slam the government and said it should stop “suppressing” social media and journalists.

“We demand that the government stops suppressing social media, stops suppressing, coaxing large sections of media into submission… Opposition voices are regularly being suppressed by the government,” Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said.