The Indian government fired back at Twitter Inc.’s former chief executive officer after he said authorities had threatened

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has accused the Indian government of putting pressure on the social media company to block accounts critical of the government amid the long-running farmers’ protest in 2021. Mr Dorsey, who was still the platform’s chief at the time before its takeover by Elon Musk, said India placed “many requests” during the months-long farmers protests. “India for example, India is one of the countries which had many requests around farmers protests, around particular journalists which were critical of the government,” the former Twitter chief, who stepped down from the company’s board last year, said in a new interview with the YouTube channel Breaking Points. “It manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India’… ‘we would raid the homes of your employees’, which they did; ‘we will shut down your offices if you don’t follow suit’. And this is India, a democratic country,” Mr Dorsey said. The protests in 2021 forced the Indian government to repeal laws that would have seen the biggest reforms to Indian agriculture in decades. Farmers drove tractors from agrarian states surrounding Delhi to block traffic on major roads into the capital city. Amid the protests, the Indian government allegedly threatened to punish Twitter employees with fines and jail terms of up to seven years for failing to suspend accounts deemed critical of the Modi administration. It demanded that Twitter block over a thousand accounts, including those tweeting under the hashtag “ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide”, arguing that the phrase was inflammatory. Following this, the social media company made over 250 accounts inaccessible to its India-based users, including that of the investigative news magazine The Caravan. The move was later reversed after a major public outcry. Twitter told the Indian government at the time that it would not comply with the directive to ban some accounts and tweets as they either constituted “free speech” or were “newsworthy”. Mr Dorsey compared India’s behaviour to that of Turkey. “We had so many requests from Turkey. We fought Turkey in their in their courts and often won but they threatened to shut us down constantly,” he said. Indian IT minister Rajeev Chandrashekar rejected the former Twitter chief’s claims that the Modi government put pressure on the social media company, calling it “an outright lie,” and “an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of Twitter’s history.” “Twitter under Dorsey and his team were in repeated [and] continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied,” Mr Chandrashekar said. The minister alleged that Twitter had a problem accepting the “sovereignty of India law,” and behaved “as if the laws of India did not apply to it”. “No one went to jail nor was Twitter ‘shut down’ ... India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India,” Mr Chandhrashekar said. “During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake,” the minister said, adding that the Indian government “was obligated to remove” them from the platform as it had the potential to “further inflame the situation based on fake news”. Mr Dorsey also commented on Twitter’s regime under Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, calling some of his moves “fairly reckless”. After taking over Twitter in October, Mr Musk proceeded to cut costs at the company and slash over three quarters of the firm’s workforce. “I think it set up a dynamic where he had to be very hasty, he had to be impatient, and he had to move as quickly as possible with features even if they weren’t fully thought out... It all looked fairly reckless,” Mr Dorsey said. Read More Twitter’s new chief echoes Elon Musk’s goal in first memo to employees Put ‘public good’ at heart of AI and new tech, Starmer to say Elon Musk is hilariously shut down by his ‘favourite’ podcast Bluesky, championed by Jack Dorsey, was supposed to be Twitter 2.0. Can it succeed? Jack Dorsey endorses Robert F Kennedy Jr for president Jack Dorsey says Twitter ‘went south’ after company’s sale to Elon Musk

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's allegations have been denied by the Indian government.

Twitter’s new chief Linda Yaccarino has sent her first memo to employees which echoes Elon Musk’s goal for the company to be a “global town square”. “From space exploration to electric vehicles, Elon knew these industries needed transformation, so he did it,” Ms Yaccarino, who led global ad sales for NBCUniversal in her previous stint, wrote. “More recently it has become increasingly clear that the global town square needs transformation – to drive civilization forward through the unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us,” she added in the memo. The longtime advertising executive is expected to oversee Twitter’s ads business that has crumbled since Mr Musk took over the company in October last year. Meanwhile, the Tesla titan said he would be overseeing Twitter’s product and engineering teams. Reiterating Mr Musk’s goal of a “Twitter 2.0”, Ms Yaccarino said the company is on a mission to become “the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication”. “That’s not an empty promise .... That’s our reality,” she said in the memo, which was also shared with some tweaks on her official Twitter account. “Have you ever been talking with someone particularly insightful and thought, you should have the freedom to speak your mind?.... We all should,” the new Twitter chief wrote. Ms Yaccarino told Twitter employees that they now had “the opportunity to reach across aisles, create new partnerships, celebrate new voices, and build something together that can change the world”. Since the Tesla and SpaceX chief’s takeover of Twitter, the platform’s ad revenue in the US plunged by over half. The New York Times reported last week that the social media company made $88m worth of ad sales between April and May this year – marking a 59 per cent drop from the same period last year. Within weeks of the “free speech absolutist” taking over Twitter, several key executives at the social media giant were fired, and controversial people like Donald Trump and Andrew Tate were allowed to return to the platform. Following many of his moves reflecting a change in content moderation policy on the platform, several high profile brands said they would stop advertising via Twitter. Following Mr Musk’s $44b takeover deal, Twitter’s value plunged, with the Tesla titan saying in March that the company was worth $20bn. In April, the multibillionaire said Twitter was “roughly breaking even”, adding that “almost all advertisers have come back or said they are going to come back”. Then last month, the Tesla titan said he would be stepping down as Twitter’s chief to focus on overseeing product, software and sysops as company’s chief technology officer. Ms Yaccarino, who seems to be selected based on her connections with the advertising world, would be the company’s new chief. “It’s rare to have the chance to put a new future into the hands of every person, partner, and creator on the planet. That’s exactly why I’m here – with all of you,” she wrote in the memo. Read More Elon Musk is hilariously shut down by his ‘favourite’ podcast Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril Elon Musk responds to bizarre AI images of him as baby Elon Musk is hilariously shut down by his ‘favourite’ podcast Twitter is a troll’s playground — and Elon Musk wants to make life even easier for them What to know about Twitter's new CEO Linda Yaccarino

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A hospital in Illinois will close on Friday due in part to a cyberattack -- a rare case of a health care provider publicly linking a hack incident to its closure.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies could worsen inequality and leave some communities poorer than before if not used for the “public good”, Sir Keir Starmer is set to warn. The Labour leader, who will offer his own vision for how to address fast-paced technological changes at a tech conference on Tuesday, is also expected to question whether the Prime Minister is actually doing enough to make the UK a world leader in AI. Sir Keir, whose appearance at the London Tech Week conference follows Rishi Sunak’s own speech on Monday, will raise the legacy of the de-industrialisation of recent decades to warn that the same mistakes cannot be made again as technology advances. The Labour leader is expected to argue that while the UK has a unique opportunity to lead the world in this area, it will require partnerships with business for the “public good”. This moment calls for Labour values, of working in partnership with business, driving technology to the public good, and ensuring people and places aren't left behind Sir Keir Starmer's expected speech He will say: “Our country is facing a choice about who benefits from the huge disruption that tech will bring. “Will it be those who already hold wealth and power, or will it be the starter firms trying to break in and disrupt the industry, the patients trying to book an appointment with their GP, the worker using technology to enhance and improve their role.” Sir Keir will argue that despite the UK’s success in science and research, a lack of certainty from the Conservatives and a missing industrial strategy are ensuring that the country’s advantages are being wasted. Discussing AI, he is also expected to say: “The question facing our country is who will benefit from this disruption? Will it leave some behind, as happened with de-industrialisation across vast swathes of our country? “Or can it help build a society where everyone is included, and inequalities are narrowed not widened?” “This moment calls for Labour values, of working in partnership with business, driving technology to the public good, and ensuring people and places aren’t left behind. “Labour would take a whole-economy approach, recognising that tech is not just a sector, but every job and every business must become digital if we are to address the UK’s productivity problem. “Diffusing the latest technology across our economy and public services will be as important as supporting the latest unicorns.” Sir Keir will tell the tech industry audience that Labour would make the harnessing of new technologies central to government. “I will harness technology as the great accelerator of our five missions for Government, working in partnership with business to face the future and deliver growth, prosperity and opportunity across the UK,” he will say. “We will form a new agenda on digital skills, through our ‘growth and skills’ levy to ensure people are equipped for the jobs of the future. “Labour’s industrial strategy, combined with good regulation, will secure and create good jobs, and responsible and ethical development of new technology.” Mr Sunak has long been enthusiastic about the opportunities of AI and wants the UK to be home to a global AI regulator. Promoting his planned major summit on the issue in the autumn, Mr Sunak on Monday also warned measures are needed to protect against the “extreme risks” AI could pose. But Labour has accused the Government of already being behind and its white paper on AI already out of date. “I do say to him, it’s all very well having these ambitions, but if they’re not matched with actions at home, we won’t have credibility on the world stage,” Mr Starmer will say. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Ukrainian schoolboy to buy home for his mother after selling Minecraft server Legislation needed to protect data from AI ‘ghostbots’, say researchers Banking app feature allows economic abuse survivors to mute malicious messages

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By Jonathan Stempel An Oregon jury on Monday found the utility PacifiCorp, a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire

A study detailing the habitability of a nearby exoplanet appears to have caught the attention of SpaceX boss Elon Musk. The tech billionaire has frequently spoken of his intention to transform humanity into a mult-planetary species through his private space firm, with plans to colonise Mars within the next few decades. The study of Proxima Centauri b, which sits within the so-called ‘Goldilocks Zone’ of the red-dwarf star Proxima Centauri, involved computer simulations to evaluate whether it can sustain liquid water that may harbour living organisms. “The major message from our simulations is that there’s a decent chance that the planet would be habitable,” Anthony Del Genio, a planetary scientist at the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies said when the study was first published in 2018. The study concluded that Earth-sized planet is potentially the closest “highly habitable” planet to our Solar System, located 4.2 light-years away from the Sun. “Practically next door,” Mr Musk wrote in a tweet on Sunday, sharing the study. Proxima Centauri b has been the subject of several studies since it was first discovered in 2016, with astronomers attempting to assess whether it is capable of sustaining life. Similar to the Earth’s moon, the planet is “locked” due to gravitational forces, meaning that the same side of Proxima Centauri b always faces its parent star. Computational models suggest that the exoplanet’s circulating oceans and atmosphere act as an effective transfer of heat, so that its dark side is not permanently frozen. Despite its relatively close distance compared to other potentially habitable planets, travelling 4.2 light-years – or 40 trillion kilometres (25 trillion miles) – requires technology that is still in the conceptual stages of development. Nasa’s interstellar space probe Voyager 1, which was launched in 1977, would take 80,000 years to travel to Proxima Centauri, however the US space agency’s DEEP-IN programme aims to make the journey possible within a single lifetime. Scientists working on DEEP-IN claim that small crafts propelled by light could travel at speeds of up to 161 million kilometres per hour, and could reach the neighbouring star and exoplanet in 20 years. Mr Musk has frequently voiced his concerns about humanity’s long-term survival, claiming that setting up self-sustaining colonies on other planets is vital to ensure the continuation of our species. SpaceX has so far been at the forefront of these endeavours, developing its reusable Starship rocket with the intention of transporting people and cargo across the solar system. Read More Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill Elon Musk claims AI will overtake humans 'in less than five years'

FRISCO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 12, 2023--