Union Minister Highlights Benefits of Twitter and Jack Dorsey Following Setback in India

Former Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey faced a major setback in India as the court ruled against the social media giant. The Karnataka High Court rejected Twitter’s petition after it failed to comply with orders from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to remove certain accounts. Justice Krishna S Dixit, the single-judge bench, delivered the judgment and imposed a hefty penalty of Rs. 50 lakh on Twitter, to be paid to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority within 45 days. The judge emphasized that the government committee involved in the matter had not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Twitter’s petition against the government’s announcement

The incident takes us to 2021, when the government issued multiple notices to block 39 Twitter accounts. The orders were also related to the restriction of some Twitter accounts during farmers’ protest over new agricultural laws in 2020 and 2021. That was then.

Recently, Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, claimed that during the farmers’ protest, the Indian government put pressure on Twitter and even announced that it would raid employees’ homes if it did not obey the government’s orders. In response to this, Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship and Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrashekar reacted on Twitter. He claimed that Jack Dorsey and his team repeatedly disobeyed the law of the land between 2020 and 2022, and it wasn’t until June 2022 that they finally complied. He also mentioned that during the January 2021 protests, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide that the government said were fake.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s reaction after Karnataka court orders

After the Karnataka High Court’s order, Rajeev Chandrasekhar told ANI, “Twitter under Jack Dorsey was a company that didn’t believe they had to follow Indian laws. The Indian government was very patient with them..they decided to go to the Supreme Court.” during the order, Jack Dorsey served as CEO of the social media company, which has since been taken over by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

In a scathing rebuke, the Union minister said this could be a big lesson for Twitter and Jack Dorsey and that “the expectation of the Government of India is always to follow the law”.