On June 20 (local time), Twitter Chairman and CTO Elon Musk said that Twitter has to obey the local government laws; otherwise, the company’s employees have to face the consequences. He was answering a question regarding what Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey said about India in a recent interview that Twitter locked a lot of handles at the government’s request.
#WATCH | Twitter and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after meeting PM Modi in New York, says "Twitter does not have a choice but to obey local governments. If we don't obey local government laws, we will get shut down so the best we can do is to work close to the law in any given country,… pic.twitter.com/4B4mgzxz9e
— ANI (@ANI) June 21, 2023
Replying to India Today’s Foreign Affairs Editor Geeta Mohan’s question Musk said, “Twitter does not have a choice but to obey local governments. If we don’t obey local government laws, we will get shut down. So the best we can do is to work close to the law in any given country. It is impossible for us to do more than that, or we will be blocked, and our people will be arrested. We cannot just apply America to Earth. There are different rules and regulations of different governments. We will do our best to provide the freest speech that is possible under the law.”
Musk’s statement came after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on his official state visit to the US. Following the meeting, Musk said he was a fan of him and was honoured to meet him. Furthermore, Musk added that PM Modi really wants to do the right thing for India. “He wants to be open, he wants to be supportive of new companies, obviously, but at the same time, make sure it accrues to India’s advantage, which is obviously that’s the job I’m saying. I am a fan of Modi,” said Musk.
Jack Dorsey claimed India threatened Twitter
On June 12 (local time), former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey accused the Indian government of threatening Twitter with legal consequences during farmer protests. In an exclusive interview on Breaking Point, that the Indian government threatened to shut down Twitter if it did not take action against “particular journalists” and accounts “critical of the government” during the farmer’s protest.
He said, “India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmer’s protest 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.”
While Jack Dorsey claimed that they were threatened with raids and a shutdown, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar issued a clarification citing how Twitter under Jack Dorsey was blatantly violating Indian laws and disregarding India’s sovereignty. He further said that Jack Dorsey was blatantly partisan, de-platforming and de-amplifying voices it did not agree with politically.
