Government forced Twitter to block Rahul Gandhi's account: Congress

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, June 13

Launching a scathing attack against the Modi government, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate on Tuesday said the government’s claim that former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was lying when he said that pressure was brought upon the microblogging site to block accounts related to farmers’ agitation “was on expected lines”.

Dorsey in a recent interview alleged that during his time at Twitter, there were “many requests” from India for holding back information and blocking accounts related to farmers’ protests and journalists critical of India. “India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers’ protest, around particular journalists critical of the government. It manifest in ways such as we (govt) will shut Twitter down in India…and raid the homes of Twitter employees, which they did,” Dorsey said.

Shrinate also alleged that the Modi government had forced Twitter to block Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s account. Rahul’s account was blocked by Twitter in August 2021, she said, adding that it was blocked on the pretext of violation of certain guidelines by Gandhi even though a photo he shared on Twitter was not of the victim but of a family member of the victim.

She said that subsequently, a shadow ban was imposed limiting the growth in the number of Gandhi’s followers on the microblogging site. Later, in February 2022, the Wall Street Journal threatened to do a story on the issue and wrote to Twitter on the subject. As a result, the shadow ban was lifted and a huge growth in the number of people subscribing to Gandhi’s tweets was noticed.

She said that Rahul Gandhi’s account was blocked by Twitter under pressure from the government.  “This was done to block the most emphatic voice from the opposition,” she said.

Shrinate said that while control exerted by the Modi government on social media is well-known, the former Twitter CEO’s revelations have exposed the reality behind the “56-inch chest”.

Dorsey has nothing to gain from lying about the Modi government putting pressure on Twitter during the farmers’ agitation, she said.

On the other hand, the Modi government had everything to gain from forcing Twitter to block accounts related to the farmers’ protest, the Congress spokesperson added.

The Congress spokesperson said while the farmers were protesting against the three controversial farm laws, the government, instead of finding solutions, branded them as “Khalistani, Pakistani and terrorists” and warned platforms such as Twitter to refrain from showing tweets related to the agitation.

“Twitter was threatened that if it did not comply with the government’s directive, its offices would be raided and the company would have to pack off from India,” Shrinate said.