India threatened to close Twitter down until it complied with orders to limit accounts, co-founder Jack Dorsey mentioned, an accusation the Indian authorities dismissed as an “outright lie”.
Dorsey, who stop as Twitter CEO in 2021, mentioned on Monday that India threatened the corporate with a shutdown and raids on workers if it didn’t adjust to authorities requests to take down posts and limit accounts that have been crucial of the federal government over protests by farmers in 2020 and 2021.
“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 mentioned in an interview.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities has repeatedly denied participating in on-line censorship and mentioned on Tuesday that Dorsey’s assertions have been an “outright lie”.
“No one went to jail nor was Twitter ‘shut down’. Dorsey’s Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law,” Deputy Minister for Data Know-how Rajeev Chandrashekhar mentioned in a submit on Twitter.
That is an outright lie by @jack – maybe an try and brush out that very doubtful interval of twitters historical past Details and fact@twitter undr Dorsey n his staff have been in repeated n steady violations of India regulation. As a matter of truth they have been in non-compliance with regulation… https://t.co/SlzmTcS3Fa
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar ?? (@Rajeev_GoI) June 13, 2023
The protests by farmers over agricultural reforms went on for a 12 months and have been among the many greatest confronted by the federal government of Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP). The farmers ended the protests in late 2021 after profitable concessions.
“India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers protest, around particular journalists that were critical of the government,” Dorsey mentioned.
The Indian authorities says it solely goals to limit misinformation and posts that curb peace and safety.
Throughout the protests, Modi’s authorities sought an “emergency blocking” of the “provocative” Twitter hashtag “#ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide” and dozens of accounts.
Twitter initially complied however later restored a lot of the accounts, citing “insufficient justification” to proceed the suspensions.
Dorsey additionally talked about comparable strain from governments in Turkey and Nigeria, which had restricted the platform of their nations at completely different factors over time earlier than lifting these bans.
