India’s government opposed Jack Dorsey’s allegations of Twitter shutdown threats

According to Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, India threatened the company with shutdowns and raids if it did not comply with demands to block accounts critical of the government’s handling of farm protests.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and Deputy Information Technology Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar called the allegation a complete lie, saying Dorsey’s Twitter regime had trouble accepting the sovereignty of Indian law. Dorsey’s comments drew attention to the Indian government’s criticism of Google, Facebook and Twitter for not doing enough to tackle fake or anti-India content. Last year, Xiaomi said India’s financial crime agency threatened its executives with physical violence and coercion.

Top Indian officials condemned Dorsey’s comments and how Twitter has previously handled false information. However, during the 2020–2021 agitation, one of the most challenging difficulties Modi has faced, many opposition politicians charged that the administration had silenced the voices of farmers. According to Rajeev Chandrashekhar, India’s federal deputy minister for information technology, Twitter repeatedly broke Indian law before beginning to abide with it in June 2022.