Oppn on Jack Dorsey’s allegations: ‘Will Modi govt answer?’, ‘makes it clear how democracy is strangulated’

Hitting out at the Modi govt, senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala wrote:

Modi Govt. forced twitter to👇

▪️Shut down accounts of Farmers & Farmer’s movement,

▪️Shut down accounts of journalists critical of Govt,
OR
Twitter and its employees would be raided.

This is what Twitter Co Founder and Ex CEO Jack Dorsey admits in a TV… pic.twitter.com/OmpSHl8RlI

— Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) June 13, 2023

Dorsey, in an interview with the Youtube channel Breaking Points, reiterated that the platform received “many requests” from the Indian government to block accounts covering farmers’ protests and those critical of the government. He also said that the platform was threatened with “a shutdown” and raids at its employees’ homes in the country.

Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar responded to Dorsey’s claims, saying that under him, Twitter was in “repeated and continuous violations of India law”.

To this, Shiv Sena (UBT)  MP Priyanka Chaturvedi replied, “Lol! Yeah the law they broke was to allow hate speech and rabid BJP agenda. But there was no crackdown or compliance issues since it supported their agenda. The minute people and opposition started to fight back using the platform, the government started to crackdown! So please, spare this little sermon.”

“Twitter under Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law.”

Say MoS IT. Lol! Yeah the law they broke was to allow hate speech and rabid BJP agenda. But there was no crackdown or compliance issues since it supported their agenda. The minute people and…

— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) June 13, 2023

Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait also chimed in, saying “We had information that the kind of reach on Facebook and Twitter that was expected on farmers’ protest, was not coming. They used to try to stop it at their level. The head has said this clearly now. But such companies don’t come under anyone’s pressure. Govt of India must have made such attempts…What he said is correct,” quoted ANI.

Congress leader DK Shivakumar added that Dorsey’s “revelations show the alarming state of free speech and democracy in India.”

At the height of the farmers’ protest in the country in 2021, the Centre had asked Twitter to take down nearly 1,200 accounts for alleged “Khalistan” links. Before that, it had asked the platform to take down more than 250 accounts.