NEW DELHI: The Government of India has summoned the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for fake reporting that the government has threatened employees of Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter with jail term.
Following a report published by the US based news outlet on March 05, stating that the Indian government has threatened employees of Facebook, its WhatsApp unit as well as Twitter with jail term as it ‘seeks to quash political protests and gain far-reaching powers over discourse on foreign-owned tech platforms’.
The report also claimed that the ‘warning’ came as direct response to the tech giants’ reluctance to taking down of data published on their platform which fuelled the violence in wake of ‘farmer’ protests.
On this report, published by the WSJ, Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), said that the said article is not only factually incorrect but misleading. None of the government communications, either written or oral, have ever threatened employees of these social media platforms with jail term.
The government puts on record serious displeasure on the asymmetrical and unreal reportage by Wall Street Journal on this issue. “Falsely attributing to the government, the rumours of Jail term to employees of social media platforms when there is no such move, is nothing but fearmongering by the newspaper and hence deeply regrettable,” the government said.
The government also expressed hope that going forward, WSJ would give adequate space to the response by the government so that the readers and other stakeholders get complete perspective.