On 1st May, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey came out in support of the anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University. Jack, who has around 6.5 million followers on X (formerly Twitter) shared several posts critical of the law enforcement agencies that responded to the protests. Notably, protesters were removed from the Hamilton Hall and several of them were arrested.
Jack has a history of supporting violent protests and meddling with affairs where he should have no position. For years, Twitter, under his leadership fomented trouble in India as well.
In a post, leftist podcaster Kyle Kulunsky wrote, “Iraq war protesters were smeared & hated at the moment. Same with Vietnam War protesters. Today anybody with a functioning brain realizes they were 100% correct & the conventional wisdom was dead wrong. The fact that people don’t see this is exactly what’s happening now is astonishing.” Quoting his post, Jack replied “Yes” approving the assertions made by Kulinsky.
— jack (@jack) May 1, 2024
Another X user Luke Rudkowaski shared a video of local law enforcement agencies at the University to disperse the protesters. He wrote, “The level of military equipment local police have is kinda alarming”. Quoting his post, Jack Dorsey wrote, “This has been all over the country for over a decade”. Notably, a “defund police” campaign ran across the USA to reduce funding to the police. In a country where mass shootings are common, powerful politicians and rich individuals have lobbied for removal of police forces.
this has been all over the country for over a decade https://t.co/qeUqjO53Ao
— jack (@jack) May 1, 2024
He also agreed with another X user Alex Miller who expressed amazement over how people “love state power when it’s on their side”.
— jack (@jack) May 1, 2024
Jack Dorsey reposted a post by Michael Tracey who downrightedly claimed that anti-Semitism is non-existing. There are countless reports where members of the Jewish community faced extreme hate in the USA following the 7th October terrorist attack in Israel by Hamas. Posters of abducted Israelis were torn down by pro-Hamas elements and Jews were assaulted, abused and mocked not only on the streets but also on the college campuses.
How Jack and Twitter fueled anti-India propaganda
In February 2021, OpIndia reported how Twitter decided to defy an order by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, India to block or remove 1,178 accounts from the social media website. These accounts were on the radar of security forces as Pakistani-run accounts tried to incite people amid the ongoing Farmer’s Protest. Twitter was given this list of suspicious accounts. Following the notice, Twitter bluntly refused to take any action and released a statement attempting to explain how it disregarded Indian security.
In its statement, Twitter declared that “the tweets must continue to flow” in a callback to a statement regarding the Arab Spring protests almost 10 years ago. This trip down memory lane on the part of Twitter did not go unnoticed. Former Twitter staff were immediately able to connect the dots with the Arab Spring. It was extremely concerning that Twitter equated the Farmer Protests happening in India to the Arab Spring.
In May 2018, Jack posed with a Hinduphobic placard, designed by an anti-Brahmin activist named Thenmozhi Soundararajan. “Smash Brahmanical patriarchy”, the placard read. Over the years, ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’ has become the dog whistle, used by liberals and Islamists alike, to openly berate the Hindu community. Later he claimed to not know about the content of the placard.
In October 2020, the Indian government sent a strong warning to the Twitter founder for showing Leh as part of China on the social media platform.
When Jack was part of Twitter, hundreds of pro-Hindu and pro-BJP accounts were abruptly blocked by the social media platform. It was only after Elon Musk took over Twitter that these accounts were brought back.
In August 2022, Opindia reported how Elon Musk flagged Twitter’s risky litigation against the Indian government. “Twitter has terminated its product lead and another key executive, retained a board member whose reelection was rejected by stockholders, instituted a hiring freeze, and disobeyed orders from and initiated risky litigation against the Indian government—thereby placing Twitter’s third largest market at risk,” he had said.
Earlier in February 2019, Twitter CEO and top officials had declined to appear before the Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology, headed by Anurag Thakur, which had issued a summons to Twitter over the issue of safeguarding citizens’ rights on social media platforms.
Twitter’s Left bias under Jack, and active interference in US elections against Trump
After Elon Musk took over Twitter, a series of revelations by journalists who examined the internal communications and data of the social media giant’s inner functioning and decision making, broadly known as ‘Twitter Files’, exposed some shocking truth as to how the platform was actively used as a political tool under Jack Dorsey.
Revealed documents showed that Twitter senior executives deliberately promoted Joe Biden and were hostile against Trump, to the extend of silencing voices and suppressing the truth. Hunter Biden laptop stories, opinions of respected medical professionals that were contrary to the US government’s covid restrictions, and many such narratives were censored by Twitter.
In an unprecedented act of political bias, Donald Trump, a sitting US president was ‘banned’ by Twitter for no apparent violation.
