Twitter was threatened with shutdown in India, Nigeria, and Turkey until it complied with orders to limit accounts, with India desirous to curb journalists’ and protesters’ use of the social media platform, co-founder Jack Dorsey mentioned on Monday.
Dorsey give up his Twitter CEO position in 2021 and the social media platform was bought by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022.
“India for instance, India is a rustic that had many requests of us across the farmer’s protest, round specific journalists that had been essential of the federal government,” Dorsey, the previous CEO of Twitter, mentioned in an interview with YouTube information present Breaking Factors.
Indian farmers ended a yr of protests in late 2021 after successful concessions from the federal government relating to sure farm legal guidelines. The demonstrations had been among the many largest confronted by the federal government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP).
“It manifested in methods similar to: ‘We’ll shut Twitter down in India,’ which is a really giant marketplace for us; ‘we’ll raid the properties of your staff,’ which they did; ‘we’ll shut down your places of work if you happen to do not comply with go well with.’ And that is India, a democratic nation,” Dorsey added.
The Indian authorities has beforehand denied partaking in on-line censorship and says it solely goals to limit misinformation and posts that curb peace and safety.
Dorsey additionally talked about related stress from governments in Turkey and Nigeria, which had restricted the platform of their nations at totally different factors through the years earlier than lifting these bans.
“Turkey could be very related (to India) like we had so many requests from Turkey. We fought Turkey of their courts and infrequently gained, however they threatened to close us down always,” he mentioned.
Dorsey additionally added that the scenario in Nigeria was such that Twitter couldn’t even put its staff on the bottom within the nation out of concern of what the federal government may do to them.
Nigeria had suspended Twitter in 2021 after it eliminated a publish from then-President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists. It lifted the ban in early 2022 after Twitter agreed to open an area workplace, amongst different agreements with authorities.
Advocacy teams have raised considerations concerning the human rights conditions in India, Turkey and Nigeria.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
