On Monday (June 12), Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey courted controversy after he accused the Indian government of coercing him to withhold accounts of journalists, who were critical of the government during the farmers’ protest.
While speaking to the Youtube channel ‘Breaking Points’, he claimed, “India for example is a country that had many requests of us around the farmer’s protest around particular journalists that were critical of the government.”
“And it manifested in ways such as, ‘we will shut put her down in India’ – which is a very large market for us – we will 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,” Jack Dorsey further alleged.
His outrageous claims were debunked by Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a detailed statement on Twitter. The Union Minister pointed out how Twitter, under the supervision of Jack Dorsey, was blatantly violating Indian laws and had complete disregard for the sovereignty of India.
He added how ‘partisan’ Jack Dorsey was involved in de-platforming and de-amplifying voices that he did not agree with politically. The ex-Twitter CEO’s run-in with India and the incumbent political dispensation at the Centre is not new.
Nonetheless, this gave an opportunity to the usual suspects to resort to anti-India propaganda. After touting Dorsey’s claims as the ‘gospel truth’, left-liberals and Islamists cast aspersions on the integrity of the Modi government.
Islamists, left-liberals endorse claims of Jack Dorsey as the ‘gospel truth’
‘Journalist’ Swati Chaturvedi wrote, “Modi has caused Indian democracy global embarrassment with his dictatorial behaviour here.” She had earlier tweeted, “Shameful by @PMOIndia threats to raid homes of Twitter officials if “farmers protests” & “critical journalists” were not censored.”
Modi has caused Indian democracy global embarrassment with his dictatorial behaviour here https://t.co/b40aDNDozw
— Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) June 13, 2023
Congress ‘troll’ Dr Nimo Yadav shared the contentious video of Jack Dorsey and claimed, “And India is world’s largest democracy. This is not my India.”
This is Jack Dorsey, former CEO of twitter.
— Dr Nimo Yadav (@niiravmodi) June 12, 2023
Here he is saying “During farmer protest Indian govt pressurised us and said we will shut down twitter, raid the homes of your employees if you don’t follow the suite”
And India is world’s largest democracy.
This is not my India 💔 pic.twitter.com/yiiTtqUDYp
Congress national media co-ordinator, Prashant Pratap, went on to suggest that Narendra Modi is afraid and thus ‘censored’ Twitter accounts critical of the BJP government.
SHOCKING (Not)
— Prashant Pratap (@iPrashantSingh) June 12, 2023
‘भारत | ट्विटर अकाउंट जो सरकार के आलोचक थे, किसानों के विरोध के दौरान…
मोदी सरकार ने हम पर दबाव डाला और कहा कि हम आपके कार्यालयों को बंद कर देंगे, आपके कर्मचारियों के घरों पर छापा मारेंगे, जो उन्होंने किया’ – @jack @narendramodi डरता है 🐦 pic.twitter.com/p5Fg26GKZP
Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, who has a history of shielding Islamists, also sought to exploit the opportunity.
Former Twitter CEO @Jack Dorsey in an interview to @esaagar @krystalball on Breaking Points talks about Worlds Largest Democracy,
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) June 12, 2023
“India for example, India is one of the country which had many requests around farmers protests, around particular journalists which were critical of… pic.twitter.com/unF6dVmv0O
Islamist outfit Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) wrote, “Twitter co-founder Jack tells @esaagar that the Narendra Modi government pressured Twitter to block accounts covering farmers’ protests and criticizing his govt while also threatening to raid and arrest its employees based in India.”
Twitter co-founder @jack tells @esaagar that the Narendra Modi government pressured Twitter to block accounts covering farmers’ protests and criticizing his govt while also threatening to raid and arrest its employees based in India.
— Indian American Muslim Council (@IAMCouncil) June 12, 2023
pic.twitter.com/OBBHNSU3Xw
Congress supporter Dr Namrata Datta, known for plagiarism, also joined the bandwagon and repeated the claims of Jack Dorsey.
How Modi Govt Restricted/Pressures Twitter for Free Speech.
— 🧬Dr. Namrata Datta (Singa Pen), PhD🧫🇬🇧🦘🇮🇳 (@DrDatta01) June 13, 2023
~Jack Dorsey
"India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers' protest, around journalists that were critical of the government. 1/2@BreakingPointsN @jack pic.twitter.com/289fsrWaXH
“The revelations by Jack Dorsey are neither surprising nor shocking for those in India who ask questions of the government. What is shocking is that more than 12 hours have passed since this video and neither ANI, nor Noida channels nor Goli Maro Thakur or ‘sources’ have lashed out yet alleging toolkit and conspiracy against India,” alleged ‘journalist’ Rohini Singh.
Although Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar and others have issued statements, rubbishing the allegations levelled by Jack Dorsey, she did not bother to update or delete her existing tweet.
The revelations by Jack Dorsey are neither surprising nor shocking for those in India who ask questions of the government. What is shocking is that more than 12 hours have passed since this video and neither ANI, nor Noida channels nor Goli Maro Thakur or ‘sources’ have lashed…
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) June 13, 2023
“Indian Govt, treating Indian Citizens as hostage, to shut critics,” alleged another left-liberal.
Jack Dorsey reveals that in so called Democratic India, during Farmers Protest, Modi Regime put pressure to block Twitter accounts critical of Government and threatened to raid homes of Twitter India Employees. Indian Govt, treating Indian Citizens as hostage, to shut critics pic.twitter.com/YuIYR3eWNe
— Joy (@Joydas) June 12, 2023
The controversies of Jack Dorsey
This is not the first time that the former Twitter CEO had a run-in with India and its government.Back in May 2018, Jack Dorsey stirred the hornet’s nest by posing 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.
Jack Dorsey later claimed to have no knowledge about the content of the placard and even ‘Twitter India’ distanced itself from the controversy.
Sign @jack is holding says "Smash Brahminical Patriarchy". Venmous Hinduphobes use "Brahminical" as a code-word, rather like "Zionist" is sometimes a code for "Jew". Congrats to @jack for joining the hate-fest https://t.co/UQBPv4U2Ff @RajivMessage @subhashkak1 @davidfrawleyved
— भारत धर्म (@BharatDharma) November 18, 2018
Around the same time, the US House Energy and Commerce Committee initiated a review of Jack Dorsey’s statements, which he gave under oath before the committee in September 2018. It is a federal crime to provide false testimony to Congress.
The hearing was about Twitter’s alleged arbitrary censorship of content published on the site. US Conservatives had often accused the platform of discrimination and silencing their voices to favour the progressives.
In October 2020, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate approved subpoenas against Jack Dorsey regarding the censorship of anti-Biden stories on the micro-blogging site.
Even the Indian government had sent a strong warning to the Twitter founder for showing Leh as part of China on the social media platform.
Lady freaks out on @jack at @TheBitcoinConf #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/glS3jdJ5vs
— Value & Time (@valueandtime) June 4, 2021
In June 2021, Jack Dorsey was heckled by one activist Laura Loomer during the Bitcoin 2021 conference organised in Miami in the United States. The incident took place after Loomer was aghast at the censorship rules of the micro-blogging site.
“Censorship is human rights violation…It’s almost as if Twitter hates Jews and conservatives. When is Jack Dorsey going to stop censoring conservatives? When am I going to get my Twitter back? I’ll be here as long as it takes,” she was quoted as saying.
Jack Dorsey was also caught endorsing tweets hailing Hollywood singer-actress Rihanna’s intervention into India’s domestic politics.
Rihanna, along with former porn-star Mia Khalifa and child protestors such as Greta Thunberg, interfered in the country’s internal affairs by endorsing violence in the name of supporting ‘farmer’ protests, causing a massive backlash against these so-called international celebrities.
Around the same time, Twitter removed a tweet by Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut, criticising the farmer’s protest. “We have taken action on Tweets that were in violation of the Twitter Rules in line with our range of enforcement options,” it said in a statement.
Twitter and the ongoing saga of Censorship
While Jack Dorsey had been falsely accusing the Indian government of censorship, it must be mentioned that his own platform had been at the helm of arbitrarily suspending/terminating the accounts of right-wing handles.
Listen from the horse's mouth itself how @jack used Twitter to silence the voices of Right Wingerd and interfered in Elections.
— Mitta Vamsi Krishna (@MittaVamsiBJP) June 13, 2023
Opposition parties & liberals in our country supports them as it helped them against PM Modi Garu and Suppressing RW Voices. pic.twitter.com/0k5ZBtHv11
In December 2018, Twitter’s legal team promptly sent official correspondence to two vocal critics of radical Islam, namely, Imam Tawhidi and Ensaf Haider for supposedly ‘violating Pakistani law’.
In March 2019, Opindia reported how Twitter censored the account of history buff ‘True Indology’ for exposing the distorted claims of ‘communal harmony’ in Jammu and Kashmir, as espoused by leftist propaganda outlet NDTV.
‘True Indology’ had simply pointed out that the Muslim population of Jammu and Kashmir never accepted a Hindu Chief Minister and that never even elected a single Hindu from their region.
BREAKING: @Twitter Insider Secretly Records CEO @jack Detailing Agenda For Further Political Censorship
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) January 14, 2021
“We are focused on one account [@realDonaldTrump] right now but this is going to be MUCH BIGGER than just one account & it’s going to go on for much longer…"#ExposeTwitter pic.twitter.com/QhyyUTHlM9
One of the most notable cases of censorship was the termination of the Twitter account of former US President Donald Trump. The fourth tranche of Twitter Files revealed how former Safety Head Yoel Roth flouted all rules to ban Donald Trump, despite being alarmed by junior employees.
At that time, Jack Dorsey had revealed that the attempt to silence and ban conservative opinion-makers is not just limited to Donald Trump. He pointed out that the censorship will continue, well past the inauguration of president-elect Joe Biden.
He told employees, “We know we are focused on one account right now, but this is going to be much bigger than just one account, and it’s going to go on for much longer than just this day, this week, the next few weeks, going on beyond inauguration. We have to expect that. We have to be ready for that.”
The Twitter Files, Part Deux!! 🍿🍿 https://t.co/bH9UiTSEK2
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022
Twitter Files had revealed how the micro-blogging platform became a hotbed of censorship through the creation of blacklists, arbitrary prevention of tweets from trending on the platform and deliberate reduction of visibility of trending topics and accounts.
In September 2022, the current Twitter owner Elon Musk even hit out at Twitter Inc. for ‘suppressing’ his tweets. He had also asked Twitter, Twitter Verified and then-CEO Parag Agarwal to fix it.
I'm curious about what role the government played in Twitter's suppression of covid policy discussion. We will see with time, I suppose.
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) December 9, 2022
Thank you @bariweiss and @elonmusk. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.
2/2
Several accounts were gutted under the pretext of Covid-19 misinformation. In December 2022, American journalist Bari Weiss pointed out how Dr Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, was one of the victims of the high-handedness of a ‘select few’ employees at Twitter
Weiss highlighted how Bhattacharya’s tweets were blocked from trending because he claimed that Covid-19 lockdowns could harm children.
“Still trying to process my emotions on learning that @twitter blacklisted me. The thought that will keep me up tonight: censorship of scientific discussion permitted policies like school closures & a generation of children were hurt,” tweeted the Stanford professor after learning about the matter.
The blocking of the Hunter Biden story
In the last weeks of the 2020 US presidential elections, the New York Post published an explosive story about Hunter Biden’s problematic emails with a Ukrainian gas company executive from Burisma.
In its report, the news outlet alleged that they had accessed material from a damaged Macbook that was brought to a service centre for repair. The customer who brought the laptop never collected or paid for the services.
The shop owner said he repeatedly tried to contact the client. Though he could not identify the owner as Hunter Biden, he said the laptop had Beau Biden Foundation’s sticker.
The report has several documents and mentions a video that proves that Joe Biden met a high-profile businessman from Ukraine when he was Vice President of the United States.
Column’s up: Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg censored the @nypost Hunter Biden stories before the election to hide the real Joe Biden https://t.co/bjx7cCw0hU
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) November 29, 2021
Reports suggested that Biden may have helped his son Hunter using his influence as the VP of the United States in his business in Ukraine. The Biden Camp categorically denied all the allegations.
It was heavily censored by both Twitter and Facebook and was branded as a piece of fake news. Initially, the left and liberal cabal dismissed the report as a hoax, but it was eventually confirmed that the laptop’s contents did really belong to Hunter Biden.
Following the restriction of the NYP report, Twitter justified the action by claiming that its policies forbid the sharing of compromised information. After the elections were over and Joe Biden was declared president, it later became clear that the NY Post story was true.
Twitter’s former head Jack Dorsey then expressed regret over censoring the story and blocking NY Post from their Twitter account.
When Twitter refused to take down child porn
In 2021, a 17-year-old boy, alias ‘John Doe’, filed a lawsuit against Twitter for not removing two child pornography videos featuring him, despite multiple requests to the social media giant.
The victim informed us that the videos were shot when he was just 13 years old. He accused Twitter of allowing the dissemination of disturbing videos and profiteering from his traumatic experience.
The teen had alleged that sex traffickers, posing as a 16-year-old female classmate, had lured him for a chat on Snapchat. After exchanging nude photos with the traffickers, he was subjected to blackmail.
The accused had coerced him into sending more sexually graphic images and videos by threatening to send the nude images to his pastor, coach and parents. The victim was made to include another child in sexual acts.
The department of homeland security had to step in to get Twitter to remove the video.
— Eliza (@elizableu) September 4, 2022
Twitter refused to take responsibility.
The lawsuit is headed to @US9thCircuit https://t.co/fJzQwqVb0d
Eventually, he mustered the courage to block the traffickers. Later in 2019, the videos of his abuse surfaced on Twitter. They were reported several times to the moderation team, which refused to take them down.
Meanwhile, the victim was subjected to bullying and harassment by his classmates over his child abuse videos. After several requests, Twitter responded to the victim and claimed that the two videos were not in violation of the company’s policies.
By then, the videos were watched over 1.67 lakh users and retweeted over 2.2K times. It was only after a formal complaint to the Department of Homeland Security that Twitter acted against the user that posted the videos.
This individual made 8k selling child sexual exploitation material on Twitter. Some of the videos were of minor survivors crying and begging to not be exploited. Over 40+ minor male survivors.
— Eliza (@elizableu) September 4, 2022
He recently pled guilty. https://t.co/XE4cxaQLww
In August 2022, The Verge reported how Twitter was planning to start a subscription model for adult content creators, along the lines of OnlyFans. At that time, a team of 84 Twitter employees pointed out how the social media giant lacked tools to identify potentially harmful sexual content.
“Twitter cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale,” they concluded. Interestingly, the social media giant was quick to terminate the accounts of those individuals who questioned the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines and the mainstream narrative about the pandemic
‘Human Trafficking Survivor Advocate’ Eliza had documented several cases where Twitter failed to protect minor victims of child abuse. In May 2021, a Russian court fined Twitter for failing to delete illegal content, including posts related to child pornography, drug abuse information, and calls for minors to commit suicide, which was highlighted by the telecom regulator Ruskomnadzor.
Twitter had been challenging the Indian govt for a long time
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.
It may be recalled how in February 2021, Twitter decided to put its own rules above Indian laws and refused to withhold or suspend accounts that have been accused of inciting violence in the country.
However, we have not taken any action on accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians. We will continue to advocate for the right of free expression on behalf of the people we serve, and are exploring options under Indian law.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) February 10, 2021
It cited freedom of speech and expression as per the Indian Constitution for news media entities, journalists, activists and politicians for refusing to take action against the offending accounts.
Interestingly, the Indian Constitution’s Article 19 which serves freedom of speech and expression does not specify the press or associated persons as separate entities.
Having said that, left liberals and Islamists are now trying to use the statement of Jack Dorsey to malign the Indian government. It comes as no wonder that fears about social media giants such as Twitter and Facebook interfering in India’s electoral process have only increased with time.
