Ex-Twitter CEO Dorsey alleges pressure from India, Centre denies claims

In a tweet, cabinet minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that Dorsey's claim was an 'outright lie'

In an interview with a YouTube channel, former Twitter chief executive officer (CEO) Jack Dorsey claimed that India had put pressure on the micro-blogging platform, including giving threats of winding it down and conducting raids on employees' homes if it refused to take action against certain accounts during the 2021 farmers' protest. The Centre has denied these allegations.

During an interview with Breaking Points late on Monday, Dorsey said that the threats came as Twitter refused to comply with the government's demands to block accounts during the farmers' protests in early 2021.

"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 said when asked to share some examples of pressure from foreign governments during his tenure before Elon Musk took over.

"India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers' protest, around particular journalists that were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as 'we will shut Twitter down in India', which is a very large market for us," Dorsey added.

In reply to Dorsey's allegations, Union minister of state for entrepreneurship, skill development, electronics and technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted, "This is an outright lie by @jack - perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history."

He added, "During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake. GoI was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news."

Last year, Twitter told the Karnataka High Court that it was asked to completely block numerous multiple accounts during the farmers' agitation on the borders of Delhi in 2021.

In its petition before the High Court, Twitter maintained that blocking orders by the Union government violates users' rights under the Constitution. The petition also describes the government's move as arbitrary and in violation of Section 69 A of the IT Act.

The Centre maintained that the blocking orders were issued in the national and public interest, and action was taken to prevent lynching and mob violence.

(With agency inputs)