New Delhi/IBNS: The Congress Tuesday slammed the BJP-led government over former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s remarks saying Opposition voices are regularly “suppressed” under the ruling dispensation.
“Yesterday, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claimed when the farmers’ agitation was happening in India against the three farmer laws, the (Narendra) Modi government ‘pressurised’ Twitter to block accounts that were showing farmers’ protest, otherwise they would be raided and Twitter would be shut down in India. The idea was to ‘suppress’ the farmers’ agitation and send out a message anybody standing with them, will be suppressed,” said Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate at a press conference at the party headquarters.
During an interview late Monday night to YouTube channel Breaking Points, when asked about the pressures he had received from foreign governments during his time as CEO of Twitter, Dorsey said, “India is a country that had many requests 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”.
On BJP refuting Dorsey’s allegation, she said, “I was not expecting the government to say anything else. There is no other defence other than saying Dorse is lying. The government has a lot to gain through lying.”
“What is the PM so scared about? Anybody exposing the government and asking uncomfortable questions will be raided, pressurised, and humiliated. It is evidently clear that Opposition voices are regularly ‘suppressed’ at the behest of the Modi government,” Shrinate said.
Responding to these claims, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that under Dorsey, Twitter was in “repeated and continuous violations of India law” and at times “weaponised misinformation”.
The Opposition parties including Congress have been accusing the ruling of ‘misusing’ the central probe agencies.
“In August 2021, the Twitter account of Rahul Gandhi ji was blocked. From August 2021 to February 2022, for six months, there was no subscriber growth in his account. It was only when a media outlet highlighted it, suddenly his subscribers saw multiple growths. This happened at the behest of the Modi government, Shrinate said.”
“They also hatched a conspiracy to oust him from the Parliament,” she said in an apparent reference to Rahul’s disqualification from Lok Sabha as a member.
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