Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sparked a debate earlier this week after alleging that the BJP-led central government had threatened to shut down the social media platforms operations in India.
Opposition leaders were seeking a discussion on the topic during a parliamentary standing committee meeting on Thursday. However, the Parliamentary Panel for Communication and Information Technology insisted that the issue wasn’t on its agenda.
“The BJP MP and chairman of the committee refused to discuss the allegation of the former Twitter CEO, saying “a foreigner’s version should not be taken seriously”, ANI reported quoting a lawmaker present in the committee meeting.
According to the report, some opposition leaders tried to raise the issue but were asked to refrain from doing so as it wasn’t on the agenda of deliberations.
The meeting held under the chairmanship of Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) Lok Sabha MP Jadhav Prataprao Ganpatrao, was called to discuss citizen data security and privacy.
Earlier this month, Dorsey had raised the issue during an interview with the YouTube channel ‘Breaking Points’.
“India is one of the countries, which had many requests around farmers' protests, around particular journalists who were critical of the government and it manifested in ways such as we will shut Twitter down in India, India is a big marketplace for us. We would raid the homes of your employees, which they did and we will shut down your offices if you don't follow suit and this is India, a democratic country," the former Twitter CEO said.
However, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar stated that Dorsey’s claim was an “outright lie”. No such interaction had even taken place, he said while addressing the inaugural edition of FinancialExpress.com’s Digital Bharat Economy Conclave 2023 on Wednesday.
