Did not shut down Twitter services, raid homes of executives: Rajeev Chandrasekhar in Parliament

This allegation was first made by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a television interview, which was repeatedly denied by Chandrasekhar on his social media handle.

“Directions for blocking under section 69A were issued to block 3,750 Twitter URLs from August 2020 to December 2021. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology neither makes any request for user account data from any platform nor does it maintain such data,” Chandrasekhar said in a written response to a question posed by Rajya Sabha member Jayant Chaudhary.

He said that out of the 3,750 URLs, Twitter did not comply with 167 URLs. Therefore, he said the government issued notice to Twitter on June 27, 2022 giving them an opportunity to comply fully, “failing which they had to face significant consequences as mentioned in the IT Act, 2000.”

Subsequent to this notice, Chandrasekhar said Twitter complied with all the blocking directions issued under section 69A of IT Act, 2000.

Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 provides power to the Government to issue directions to block any information if it is necessary in the interest of sovereignty and integrity, defence of India, security of the State, and friendly relations with foreign States or public order.

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