Government’s spat with former Twitter chief

Brut India

“Twitter was violating Indian law multiple times…” Former Twitter chief’s allegations against India had the Centre up in arms.

Transcript

00:00India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers' protest,

00:07around particular journalists that were critical of the government.

00:09Jack Dorsey was the CEO of Twitter during a very, very dubious period in Twitter's history.

00:16What he has said is an outright lie.

00:30India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers' protest,

00:49around particular journalists that were critical of the government.

00:52And it manifested in ways such as,

00:56we will shut Twitter down in India, which is a very large market for us.

01:01We will raid the homes of your employees, which they did.

01:05We will shut down your offices if you don't follow suit.

01:08And this is India, a democratic country.

01:26Jack Dorsey was the CEO of Twitter during a very, very dubious period in Twitter's history.

01:43What he has said is an outright lie. And I have said that publicly and I am reiterating it again.

01:49Twitter is a company that believed that it was not necessary for it to comply with Indian law.

01:57It believed that it did not have to comply with Indian law and made up its rules as it went along.

02:04And the government of India has been very clear from the very beginning,

02:08for all companies that operate in India, they have to always comply with Indian law.

02:13I just want to refresh Jack Dorsey's memory and certainly all your viewers

02:17that between 2020 and 2022, Twitter was violating Indian law multiple times.

02:25And it was in non-compliance several times during those two years.

02:31And it started complying only in June 2022. During that entire period, nobody went to jail,

02:38nobody was raided. And so, Jack Dorsey, knowing fully well that Twitter did not comply with Indian law

02:45and did not face any consequence of that, is today lying and making up this story about raids and arrests.

02:53Twitter during this period was not only partisan, was behaving in an absolutely arbitrary manner.

03:02And the Twitter files that have then come out after Jack Dorsey sold Twitter,

03:07has exposed Twitter to be a platform that abused its power, misused its power

03:14and de-amplified many people, as in muted their voices.

03:19De-platformed many people, as in permanently took them off Twitter.

03:24Totally in violation of article 14 and article 19 of our constitution.

03:29And they did this in India, they did this in the US.

03:33The government of India has always maintained that our objectives are to ensure that the internet is safe and trusted.

03:39That every intermediary like Twitter, foreign or Indian, big or small, must be always compliant with Indian law.

03:47And our laws have very clear provisions about weaponizing of misinformation,

03:53which is what Twitter did during the entire period of 2020, where they weaponized misinformation against the Indians and the government of India.

04:02And therefore, they were exposed.

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