India summons Twitter boss Jack Dorsey on Feb 25 to answer on bias allegations
New Delhi, Feb 11 (IBNS): Indian authorities on Monday declined to hear representative of the micro blogging site Twiiter and again summoned the US-based company's chief executive Jack Dorsey on February 25, said reports.
Dorsey had earlier said he was unable to make the trip to India at such a short notice.
The BJP MP Anuraj Thakur-led parliamentary committee had sought Dorsey's opinion on complaints of Twitter's perceived bias against right-wing profiles on the site.
The Hindu nationalist BJP is the ruling party in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has 45.4 million followers on the micro-blogging site.
It is not yet known if the Twitter chief executive will make it to the meeting scheduled on February 25.
However, denying the allegations, Colin Crowell, global vice president, public policy, Twitter said in a statement: "Twitter is a global platform that serves a global, public conversation. Elevating debate and open discourse is fundamental to the platform’s service, and its core values as a company. Twitter is committed to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind.”
“The public conversation around Twitter’s policies and actions may be distorted by some who have a political agenda and this may be particularly acute during election cycles when highly-charged political rhetoric becomes more common. For our part, we will endeavour to be even more transparent in how we develop and enforce our policies to dispel conspiracy theories and mistrust,” he added.
Reacting to Dorsey's no-show at Monday's meeting, India's ruling BJP spokesperson and Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi said: “In any country, no agency has the right to disrespect the institutions of that country. In this situation, if Twitter is disrespecting the established institution of Parliament, then there are repercussions.”
Twitter has more than 335 million users.
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