The government of India says Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s allegations that it threatened to shut the site down if it didn’t restrict accounts critical of the handling of farmer protests are an “outright lie.” Dorsey, who stepped down as Twitter CEO in 2021, on Monday said India also threatened to raid the homes of the company’s staff if they did not comply with demands to take down specific posts. “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; And this is India, a democratic country,” Dorsey said in a YouTube interview. Deputy Minister for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar called the accusations an “outright lie” and insisted: “No one went to jail nor was Twitter 'shut down'. Dorsey's Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law.”
