FPJ Editorial: Charge And Denial

Former Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey has accused the Government of threatening the social media platform should it fail to comply with an increasing number of requests to take down several posts critical of it during the farmers’ protest two years ago. With an equal vehemence, the government has rubbished the charges, saying that Dorsey encouraged Twitter not to abide by the general guidelines and cautions prescribed by it.

The truth may lie between those two opposite claims. For, there can be no denying that under Dorsey Twitter had come to reflect a strong left-liberal bias in the US and, as a result, down the line in its global operations. Tesla boss Elon Musk, who bought out Dorsey and others and now controls the popular social media platform, is on record saying how the previous promoters reflected their own `woke’ worldview on Twitter. However, at one stage at the peak of the farmers’ protest, when Twitter India refused to comply with government requests to delete some `false/critical/incendiary’ posts, cops did visit Twitter offices in Delhi and Bengaluru. It is also undeniable that Twitter dragged its feet on signing the general memoranda drawn up by the government regarding safeguards to be followed to prevent social media misuse for anti-India propaganda.

Even conceding that governments tend to be sensitive to dissent, a greater responsibility lies on the shoulders of the promoters of the new-age tools of global communications not to allow subversive elements to spread hate and disaffection in the name of transparency and open societies. In any case, a founder of a social media platform cannot appropriate it for himself it to pedal his own jaundiced world-view unless declaring up front his mission statement. The problem with the wokeness is that it tends to be at odds with everyone else who is untouched by the new-fangled craze.