Jack Dorsey calls out Indian government in interview; India denies claims

Jack Dorsey; Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

On June 12, in an interview with US-based YouTube channel Breaking Points, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and former chief, spoke about the many requests Twitter received from the Indian government during the 2021 farmers’ protests, regarding journalists who were critical of the government. During the protests, the government had asked Twitter to remove over 1,000 accounts related to the agitations. It alleged that many were run by overseas supporters of the Khalistan movement while some were backed by Pakistan. Twitter initially suspended some of the accounts. However, it later restored them after informing the government that it considered the contents to be acceptable free speech.

In the interview, Dorsey was asked about the pressures he had received from foreign governments during his time as Twitter’s CEO. He said, “India, for example, was a country that had many requests around the farmers' protests, around particular journalists that were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter 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.”