‘Was told that homes of our employees will be raided’: former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on pressure from India govt. during farmers’ protest

Former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey has alleged that he Indian government made several requests of Twitter, relating to the farmers’ protests, and journalists critical of the Centre

The Indian government made several requests of Twitter, relating to the farmers’ protests, and journalists critical of the Centre, and followed it up by exerting pressure and threatening to raid Twitter employees, former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey has alleged.

Mr. Dorsey made these allegations on June 12, in an interview he gave to the YouTube channel Breaking Points. During theinterview, Mr. Dorsey was asked about the pressures he had received from foreign governments during his time as CEO of Twitter.

“India is a country that had many request of us around the farmers protest, 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,” Mr. Dorsey said. He then went on to compare his experience to other countries, including Turkey — a country he called extremely similar to India.

At the height of the farmers’ protest in February 2021, the Centre had asked Twitter to remove nearly 1,200 accounts related to the protest that it suspected to be linked to Khalistan sympathisers or backed by Pakistan. The Hindu reported that the government felt that Mr. Dorsey ‘liking’ a few tweets supporting the protest, at the time, raised questions over the platform’s neutrality.

This is not the first time that the Indian government is facing such allegations. India is the highest requester of user account data in the world, ahead of Twitter’s two largest markets, the United States and Japan. Since the company announced it will not be publishing a formal transparency report for the year 2022, it is unclear how many user account requests the Government has sent to Twitter. In July–December 2021, the latest period for which such information is available, and a period where India was also the top requester, the platform received 2,211 requests for 7,768 accounts. 

On government removals, India is currently the fourth highest requester in the world, behind Japan, South Korea and Turkey. In the same 2021 six month period for which data is available, the government sent over 4,000 legal demands for removal, of which Twitter complied with 19.5%.

Elon Musk who immediately succeeded Mr. Dorsey as CEO of Twitter had also remarked in April this year that, “The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict.”