All 3 nations Jack Dorsey named didn't give in to US pressure on Ukraine

New Delhi, June 13

The interview of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey where he named India, Nigeria and Turkiye as nations having pressured the company to take down tweets comes at a time when all three are charting an autonomous foreign policy. None of them has condemned Russia for the conflict with Ukraine, nor have they stopped doing business with Moscow.

If Dorsey’s broadside comes ahead of PM Modi’s US visit, fellow-travellers of the interviewing duo are arranging for public screening of the BBC documentary on Gujarat that showed the then state administration in poor light.

Both the BBC documentary as well as Dorsey’s observations about India requesting a takedown of some Twitter handles that alleged “genocide” in India when the farmers’ protest was in full swing have been repeated several times in the past, but are getting raked up all over again. The BBC documentary is getting screened wherever PM Modi goes for a state visit. This was the case in Australia as well where PM Modi had gone on an official visit.

Dorsey went a step further by alleging that unnamed authorities in India had threatened to shut down Twitter’s India office. The fact remains that Twitter was allowed to operate unmolested even though it did not comply with the rules for nearly two years.

Nigeria has entered the cross-hairs of the US administration after Bola Ahmed Tinubu won a highly disputed presidential election. Though the US insisted that it had no favoured candidate, it promptly imposed visa restrictions on specific individuals in Nigeria for undermining the democratic process during its 2023 election cycle.

Turkiye, on the other hand, has been a thorn in Washington’s Middle-East strategy ever since Recep Tayyip Erdogan consolidated power after becoming an executive President in 2014. Despite being a NATO member and being the base for US nuclear weapons, Erdogan has continued to interact with Moscow and has pushed for multipolarity in world affairs.