Ahead of PM Modi’s state visit to US, Dorsey’s charges are a mere trailer of what lies in store as we approach 2024

Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter under whom the microblogging site resembled a ‘crime scene’ replete with dark secrets, child porn, unaccounted behaviour and systemic collusion with anti-India and subversive forces, has made some explosive claims to a US-based YouTube channel on India. Speaking to Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti of the American news series Breaking Points, Dorsey, who’s been getting the rough end of the stick in his investments and entrepreneurial ventures of late, claimed that the Indian government had raided Twitter employees’ homes and threatened to shut the platform down if it didn’t comply with the government’s diktats. Dorsey, who compared the Narendra Modi government’s actions with Türkiye and Nigeria, alleged in the interview that he was “surprised at the level of engagement and requests” by some governments for content moderation during his time. “India, for example, was a country that had many requests around the farmers’ protests, around particular journalists that were critical of the government. “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,” said Dorsey, sporting a scornful smirk while describing India’s democratic credentials. Dorsey is losing his touch. He used to be more sophisticated in spreading chicanery. His latest lies are easily busted. For instance, the former Twitter CEO claimed that Indian authorities raided the homes of then employees of Twitter. It is curious that not only such an inflammatory accusation was made without any shred of evidence, but also the fact this was made for the very first time. There are no known instances, claims or disclosures from either Twitter authorities or the Indian side that such a raid took place, or there were risks of such raids, or threats made to shut the platform. What we do know is that in May 2021, teams of Delhi police officers visited Twitter India’s offices in Delhi and Gurugram to “serve notice” and seek clarification on certain tweets by BJP leaders that were tagged as “manipulated media”. These were no “raids,” as Dorsey claimed, since no search or seizure operations took place. Media reports at that time point out that the Delhi police teams were compelled to pay a visit to Twitter’s offices since the microblogging platform was unresponsive on certain requests for information and Twitter India’s then managing director Manish Maheshwari was acting elusive. News Agency IANS quoted a Delhi police ‘source’, as saying that “(Delhi Police) Special Cell has sent a notice to Twitter. In its reply, Twitter said it has no more knowledge in the matter. So, a team of officers went to the offices of Twitter to record the statements of the persons there, but they were found closed.” Delhi Police later released a statement, clarifying that “no raids or searches” were carried out, and stating that its team “went to the Twitter office to serve a notice to Twitter, as a part of a routine process. This was necessitated as we wanted to ascertain who is the right person to serve a notice, as replies by Twitter India MD have been very ambiguous.” If Dorsey was referring to this incident in the interview, it is unclear why he chose to play fast with facts and sought to mislead and manipulate. Lies and obfuscation, however, seem to be part of Dorsey’s standard operating procedure. He tried to create the impression that the Indian government is intolerant of criticism and guilty of intimidation tactics but what he didn’t clarify was most of the requests from the Modi government during the farmers’ protests were aimed at preventing disinformation and inflammatory hashtags such as “ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide” that could have further worsened a volatile climate. It is also curious that while Twitter acted with extreme alacrity in restricting accounts and information during the 6 January, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, it took a laissez-faire approach while a similar insurrection sponsored by protesting farmers occurred at the Red Fort just a few days later on 26 January, 2021. A readout released by India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, post MeitY secretary’s meeting with Twitter’s top officials Monique Meche and Jim Baker on February 10, 2021, stated: “Secretary took up the issue of using a hashtag on ‘farmer genocide’ with Twitter executives and expressed strong displeasure on the way Twitter acted after an emergency order was issued to remove this hashtag and content related to that. Spreading misinformation using an incendiary and baseless hashtag referring to ‘farmer genocide’ at a time when such irresponsible content can provoke and inflame the situation is neither journalistic freedom nor freedom of expression as envisaged under Article 19 of the Constitution of India. Despite the attention of Twitter being drawn to such content by the Government through a lawful process, the platform allowed the content with this hashtag to continue, which was extremely unfortunate. Secretary reminded Twitter about the action taken by Twitter during the Capitol Hill episode in the USA and compared that with the disturbance in Red Fort in India and its aftermath. He expressed dissatisfaction over Twitter’s differential treatment in the two incidents. A deep sense of disappointment at seeing Twitter side not with ‘freedom of expression’ but rather with those who seek to abuse such freedom and provoke disturbance to public order, was conveyed to the Twitter representative.” This should fall under the category of reasonable request based on sound logic, not “intimidation tactics.” It can’t be Dorsey’s argument that Twitter be allowed to operate in India as a sovereign entity to whom the laws of the land and the legal system do not apply, and the very mention of compliance brings forth charges of “intimidation.” Not surprisingly, deputy minister for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar called Dorsey’s comments “outright lies” and pointed out on Twitter — now under Elon Musk — that Twitter “ undr (sic) Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied. No one went to jail nor was twitter “shutdown”. Dorseys Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law. It behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it.” In a blog posted on that very day (10 February, 2021) that top Twitter officials met the ministry official, Dorsey’s Twitter sought to occupy the moral high ground and justify its action by saying , “…we do not believe that the actions we have been directed to take are consistent with Indian law, and, in keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken any action on accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians. To do so, we believe, would violate their fundamental right to free expression under Indian law.” This isn’t just unabashed hypocrisy (just a few days prior to this, the site had de-platformed a sitting US president and blocked a noted American media outlet’s legitimate news item in Hunter Biden laptop story in contravention of the site’s own laws), but the fact is that Dorsey’s Twitter took recourse to dubious interpretation of “freedom of expression” under “Indian law” to act as a supra-sovereign authority that is immune to legal processes and jurisdiction of the sovereign land where it operates as a profit-seeking foreign business entity. Dorsey’s defiance of the Indian government’s orders was not due to some high ideals that Twitter subscribed to, but because Dorsey was pushing activist agendas to subvert Indian democracy and impose reputational damage on a Hindu nationalist government that the owner and his coterie abhorred. Well may Dorsey pose as a victim of government oppression or a free-speech crusader who was fighting a lone battle, he has little credibility. Under his leadership, Twitter was guilty of egregious crimes such as failing to take action against child porn because “it did not violate the company’s policies”. In September 2021, the Delhi Police sought to take action against Dorsey and Maheshwari, then Twitter India MD, over circulation of child porn. Following a complaint by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, cops filed an FIR against Twitter, mentioning “how Twitter purposely did not submit information regarding handles sought by them and used delaying tactics by invoking mechanisms like mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT).” Twitter’s laissez-faire attitude towards child porn was confirmed further when new owner Musk confronted Dorsey on the platform by tweeting that former Twitter executives “refused to take action against child exploitation,” and told Dorsey that “almost no one was working on child safety” until he took over on 27 October. If this represents one dark side of Dorsey’s leadership, the infamous Twitter files revealed yet another audacious bid to manipulate public opinion and serve Dorsey and his gang’s political objectives — be it over US presidential elections or the Covid vaccine mandate. On the Hunter Biden laptop story, the way Twitter let itself be weaponized by the American federal investigative agency, the FBI, goes to show how Dorsey and his top team were in the pockets of the American deep state and ran phoney agendas on American soil. Little wonder that Dorsey would try to propagate anti-government lies in India without fear of any meaningful reprisals. Twitter Files have revealed that under Dorsey, the platform was a veritable crime scene of rank censorship and pernicious agenda-peddling and the entire top team of executives comprising Dorsey, Baker, Yoel Roth and Vijaya Gadde were bent on weaponizing the platform to meet their political objectives. This was being done not only in the US, where Republican lawmakers and their supporters were shadowbanned , de-platformed or “secretly blacklisted”, but this toxic politics was exported outside the US into countries such as India where the conservative government at the Centre became Twitter’s enemy No.1. In the context of pre-Musk Twitter’s regime change operations, the question about the timing of Dorsey’s latest outburst against the Modi government should be explained. It is certainly not a coincidence that Dorsey came out with outlandish charges about the time when the prime minister is about to embark on a state visit to the US where he is scheduled to attend a ‘state dinner’ hosted by the US president and his wife, and is also slated to address a joint session of the US Congress — prestigious events that reflect the depth and trajectory of India-US ties and Modi’s stature within the Biden administration despite the ‘best efforts’ of the hard-Left section within the Democrats that never tires of peddling insidious narratives against the BJP government on ‘human rights’ and ‘religious freedoms’.

Dorsey knows that his remarks were political and will be used as a weapon not only by the anti-Modi segment within the Democratic Party, the US State Department and American liberal media, his remarks would also ratchet up the heat on the Biden administration at a time when White House seeks to project an image of friendship, bonhomie, and warmth. If we take into account the fact that just two days ahead of Modi’s landing in the US, two so-called human rights groups linked to billionaire investor George Soros — Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch— have planned to screen in Washington DC BBC’s hit-job against Modi on Gujarat riots the picture becomes clearer.

Dorsey’s comments that are designed to stir the pot ahead of Modi’s arrival, along with the ambush attempts of Soros’s fronts, are a mere trailer of what is being cooked up by disparate powers that include woke progressives in America to Opposition forces in India that would love to see nothing more than Modi getting upstaged in 2024. Treacherous knives are being earnestly sharpened. The author is Deputy Executive Editor, Firstpost. He tweets @sreemoytalukdar. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram .