Indian sports minister Anurag Thakur slams Dorsey’s claim of ‘pressure’ from India, calls it ‘blatant lie’

Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur, on Tuesday, reacted to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's claim that the microblogging site was under pressure from the Indian government to block the social media accounts of people covering the farmer's protest.

Calling the claim a "blatant lie", Thakur said that "several foreign forces wake up when elections approach in India."

He further slammed the ex-Twitter chief saying that he has suddenly woken up after "years of sleep and wants to cover up his misdeeds."

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"What was said, is a blatant lie. Jack Dorsey woke up after years of sleep and wants to cover up his misdeeds. When Twitter was bought by another person, it was revealed in 'Twitter Files' how was the platform being misused. Jack Dorsey has not been able to answer this to date because he was exposed," he said.

'Twitter Files' is a series of tweets that were highlighted by Elon Musk, when he took over the company, to uncover the wrongdoings carried out on the social media platform during Dorsey's leadership.

Thakur further remarked on the timing of the statement made by the founder of Twitter, as Indian PM Narendra Modi is all set to embark on his official visit to the United States.

"Several foreign forces and their agents in India wake up when elections approach in India. They were exposed earlier and will be exposed this time as well."

"Indian democracy is strong, the world gives hope to India and India lives up to this hope," he added stressing that foreign forces will not succeed in creating unrest in India.

He further backed Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar's comment, who rejected Dorsey's claim terming it as "an outright lie" and "an attempt to brush out the very dubious period" of the social media company's history.

Earlier, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar took to Twitter to post a rebuttal where he said Dorsey was attempting to "brush out a very dubious period of Twitter's history".

"Twitter under Dorsey and his team were in repeated and continuous violations of India'slaws. 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," said Chandrasekhar.

The minister added that the government was attempting to remove misinformation traversing the social media platform.

"During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake. GoI was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news," he added.

What claims did Dorsey make?

Dorsey made the claims during an interview on the YouTube channel 'Breaking Points' on Mondaywhenasked how did the platform manage when powerful people came to them and demanded certain actions and if he faced any pressure from foreign governments.

“India for example, India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers protests, around particular journalists which were critical of the government, and it manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India’… ‘we would 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.

(With inputs from agencies)

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