KOLKATA: Former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey ruffled quite more than a few feathers as he claimed that the Indian government has requested to block Twitter accounts that were focussing on farmersโ protests.
The Twitter co-founderโs comments drew sharp reactions from the opposition parties, with Bengal Chief minister Mamata Banerjeeโs Trinamool Congress (TMC), which cautiously supported farmersโ protests, launching a scathing attack on the central government.
In a scathing attack on the central government, senior TMC leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sukhendu Sekhar Roy said that Dorseyโs comments show the rise of ugly heads of authoritarianism.
ALSO READ: โOutright lieโ: India slams ex-Twitter boss for farmer stir censorship claim
Speaking to The New Indian, Roy said, โAITC has all along focused on the danger of subversion of democracy with denial of personal liberty and the right of expression of the citizens coupled with infringement of freedom of the press. These issues have since been highlighted by foreign media and also discussed in parliaments both inside and outside India.โ
โExamples are galore as to how the oppositionโs voice is being throttled and print, electronic and social media have been made to measure,โ he added.
โThe revelations made by Jack Dorsey on the suppression of tweets regarding farmersโ agitation have clearly depicted the rise of ugly heads of authoritarianism,โ Roy asserted.
This is an outright lie by @jack โ perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history
Facts and truth@twitter undr Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with lawโฆ https://t.co/SlzmTcS3Fa
โ Rajeev Chandrasekhar ๐ฎ๐ณ (@Rajeev_GoI) June 13, 2023
Earlier, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said, โThe same familiar statement was received from the government that he is lying, but Jack Dorsey has no reason to lie against the government. He is neither a Twitter CEO nor a board member. Who is the central government really afraid of? But the more you suppress the truth, the faster it emerges.โ
Shrinate accused the central government of imposing a shadow ban on Rahul Gandhiโs Twitter account for a period of six months starting from August 2021.
Twitterโs ex CEO Dorsey is making a desperate case for himself to cover up his sins. In fact, this inveterate liar is doing nothing different today from what he did in 2018-20 when his Indian female colleagues โ now ousted from Twitter โ openly joined hands with 39 Indianโฆ pic.twitter.com/E8odNaATgs
โ Rohan Dua (@rohanduaT02) June 13, 2023
In an interview, Dorsey, who sold Twitter to Teslaโs Elon Musk for $44 billion last year, said, โIndia, for example, is a country that sent many requests regarding the farmersโ protest, particularly journalists critical of the government.โ
ALSO READ: Twitter before Musk regime had power to read your DMs!
โAnd it manifested in ways such as โwe will shut Twitter down in Indiaโ, which is a very large market for us. โWe will raid the homes of your employeesโ, which they did. โWe will shut down your offices if you donโt follow suitโ. And this is India, a democratic country,โ he added.
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