On Tuesday, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar refuted co-founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey’s assertion that the Indian government forced Twitter to block accounts covering the farmers’ protests, calling it an outright lie and an effort to gloss over a very questionable period in the social media company’s history.
In an interview on Monday with the YouTube channel “Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar,” Dorsey, who left the board of directors of Twitter last year, claimed that the Indian government had exerted pressure on the company and threatened to shut it down there and raid the homes of its employees. India is one of the nations that received numerous requests regarding farmer demonstrations and certain journalists who were critical of the government.
These demands took the form of threats to shut down Twitter in India, which is a significant market for us. Since this is India, a democratic nation, we would raid the homes of your employees, which they did, and we would close down your offices if you didn’t follow suit. Dorsey is heard saying in the interview to the YouTube channel.
Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar today said that Twitter under Jack Dorsey and his team were “in repeated and continuous violations of Indian law and that they complied only after June 2022.
“No one went to jail nor was twitter shutdown,” he said in a tweet.
He took to Twitter today to post: “This is an outright lie by @jack- perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history. @twitter undr Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with the law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied. No one went to jail nor was twitter shutdown,” he wrote.
He further said that Dorsey’s Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law. “It behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it. India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar wrote.
Referring to the farmer’s protest in January 2021, he said that since there was a lot of misinformation the government of India was obligated to remove such information from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news.
“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. Such was the level of partisan behaviour on Twitter under Jack regime, that they had a problem removing misinformation from the platform in India, when they did it themselves when similar events took place in the USA,” Chandrasekhar said in his tweet.
He further clarified that no one was raided or sent to jail the focus was to ensure compliance with Indian laws.
“To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring compliance with Indian laws. There is ample evidence now in public domain abt Jack twitter’s arbitrary, blatantly partisan n discriminatory conduct and misuse of its power on its platform during that period,” he wrote.
“Twitter under Dorsey was not just violating Indian law, but was partisan in how it was using “deamplify” n deplatforming of some arbitrarily in violation of Art 14,19 of our constitution and also assisting in weaponising of misinformation. Our govts policies remain clear for all Intermediaries operating in India – compliance with laws to ensure the Internet is Safe&Trusted, Accountable,” he wrote further.
In November 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of the three Central farm laws.
In his address to the nation, PM Modi said then, “Today I want to tell everyone that we have decided to repeal all three farm laws.”
Farmers staged a protest in large numbers against the government’s three farm laws since the Centre passed the laws in 2020.
The three farm laws are — The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act provides for setting up a mechanism allowing the farmers to sell their farm produces outside the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs). Any licence-holder trader can buy the produce from the farmers at mutually agreed prices. This trade of farm produces will be free of mandi tax imposed by the state governments.
The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act allows farmers to do contract farming and market their produces freely.
The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act is an amendment to the existing Essential Commodities Act.