Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is on a visit to India, his first visit to the country. After arriving on 10th November, he has been several people in the country. On 10th, he met Dalai Lama, whom Jack described as an amazing teacher. On 12th, the Twitter boss met Rahul Gandhi, where Jack was seen showing his tattoos to the Congress president.
On 13th, Jack met prime minister Narendra Modi and posted pictures of the meet on Twitter.
Thank you Prime Minister @narendramodi for having us today. I enjoyed our conversation about the importance of global conversation. Also: thanks for the ideas for Twitter! pic.twitter.com/aelfOEZ65v
— jack (@jack) November 13, 2018
This pictures drew sharp reactions from tweeple in India, who didn’t approve of several things seen in the pictures.
First, Jack was seen sitting cross-legged in front of the Prime Minister, and many people didn’t like it. People pointed to Jack that it is considered rude to sit cross-legged in front of a head of government/state. Many thought that while meeting someone like a Prime minister a more formal sitting posture should be adopted.
Can somebody please tell @jack that it’s utterly rude to sit with crossed legs opposite the head of State. Shall be happy to give you free advise on intercultural communication!
— U Appenzeller (@Amy_8888) November 13, 2018
Jack it is not customary to sit as you have done in the photo before an elderly person, leave alone head of the country! Trust you will take this advise in right spirit.
— LV (@yelvee) November 13, 2018
Hi Jack.. Meeting n all is great but sitting cross legged in front of dat chair is not..
— Vivek (@osteopathblah) November 13, 2018
When you visit any country, try to learn culture and how to sit when elder is present. This is called curtsey. Now Donot suspend my account
— Maverick (@abhikhandelwal) November 13, 2018
The second point some people noted is the attire of Jack. He was wearing a black hoodie, a pair of black casual trouser which seemed to be leather, and black casual shoes. It was a rather unusual choice of dress, as most people prefer standard formal attire or traditional dress while meeting heads of governments.
Did you @jack really wear a leather trouser at an official engagement with Head of a state ?
— Saurabh Suman (@saurabhsuman88) November 13, 2018
Hi Jack. You are meeting a nation’s prime minister. Can’t you go in formal dress? Is India joke for you? Indian beggars r better looking than you. I vl see how u dressed up to see china or Saudi premiers
— meenakshi vedavyasan (@meenavyas50) November 13, 2018
The third point which attracted most outrage was the presence of Mahima Kaul in the meeting, who is Director of Policy for Twitter India and South Asia. Several people pointed out the fact that Kaul is a known Modi hater, and they objected to her accompanying Jack while meeting PM Modi.
That Moment when you had abused someone and he invited to his home. pic.twitter.com/cdBkvywKHz
— Chandrashekhar Shisode ™️ (@cshobhauday) November 13, 2018
Many Twitter users sent screenshots of Mahima’s past tweets as replies to Jack, which show how she used to abuse Modi earlier. The screenshots also show how she used to praise Rahul Gandhi.
Is the lady obsessed with “modis ass” and employed by your company also there in the room, Jack? ?https://t.co/fiME1EGasw pic.twitter.com/E6W0AJPhAR
— Abhinav Agarwal (@AbhinavAgarwal) November 13, 2018
We Can See That Someone Badly Needs Burnol, Jack. Please Don’t Force Your Employees To Do Photo-ops To Appear Neutral. ??? pic.twitter.com/StidwaNd5t
— Sir Jadeja (@SirJadeja) November 13, 2018
I see the lady @misskaul on right who tweeted rubbish about @narendramodi and she still has a chair for the meeting. Nice on the part of PM to be gracious enough n accommodate ppl and ideologies that disrespect his position and party.
— DSingh (@dhirajsingh14) November 13, 2018
BTW did @misskaul apologize to @narendramodi for running a fake n hate campaign on him?
What ever u do in India … just remember that Modi is your brand ambassador n torch bearer and the main source of revenue generation in India is always on his name!— Nationalist (@SatyaDevGuru) November 13, 2018
We had reported last month that after a popular right-leaning spoof maker @Spook_Junkie was suspended by Twitter for unknown reasons, people started to search for political bias in Twitter India. In the process, several anti-Modi, pro-Rahul Gandhi tweets of Mahima Kaul was discovered by many people. Later, Mahima deleted many of such tweets. These tweets show deep-rooted hatred Mahima has for prime minister Modi. It was also discovered that she follows several left-leaning hate-mongering handles, including @AmbedkarCaravan that regularly spews venom against Hindus.
People also called Jack out for Twitter’s self-admitted left-leaning bias and complained about suspending right-wing users while taking no action against abuses by left-wing users. Some people also complained about ‘shadow banning’ right-wing users, which means a user is not banned by Twitter, but their tweets don’t appear in the timeline of their followers. Such shadow-banned users also don’t appear in search results and auto-complete suggestions.
did u tell modi, how @TwitterIndia is shadow blocking RW’s? did u tell how BIASED your platform is?
— Masala Chaas (@masala_chaas) November 13, 2018
Even US president Donald Trump had attacked Twitter for this practice, and Twitter had admitted that it does filter users but blamed an algorithm for the same.
