Will Modi Govt Answer? Opposition On Jack Dorsey’s Pressure From India Claim

Opposition parties on Tuesday sought a response from Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government over co-founder Jack Dorsey's claims that the Indian government 'pressured' the micro-blogging platform to 'block' some accounts during farmer protest.

Even as the government called Dorsey's claims as outright lies, the Opposition is in no mood to spare the government over former Twitter CEO's stunning claims.

"Modi Govt. forced Twitter to: Shut down accounts of Farmers and 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 interview. Will Modi Govt answer?" Congress leader Surjewala said in a tweet.

Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said that the claims made by the Twitter founder have made it clear now that the democracy of the country and freedom are under threat and that democracy is being strangulated behind the curtain.

"I have seen how the democracy of the country and freedom are under threat and how democracy is being strangulated behind the curtain. This makes it clear", Sanjay Raut was quoted saying by the news agency ANI.

"Here's a new task for today. EXPOSED. Modi and his boys were not only intimidating farmers during the protests, see what else they did!," tweeted TMC leader Derek'O Brien.

"The biggest dictatorship is running in the world's biggest democracy! The voice of the citizens is suppressed by the Modi government in every way!," tweeted RJD.

In an interview, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claimed that the micro-blogging platform had faced government pressure and threats of shutdown during farmers' protests.

Rubbishing the claims, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar strongly denied Dorsey's allegation of receiving many requests from India to censor reporting on farmers' protests, as well as threats of shutting down the platform.

Dorsey's Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law, and it behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it, Chandrasekhar said.

"India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India," the Minister said.

During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake, the Minister said adding that the government was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform as 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.