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Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

Buried in the last paragraph:

>"Police in two Indian states have named Twitter India boss Manish Maheshwari in complaints. The state of Uttar Pradesh has challenged in the Supreme Court a bar on police action against Maheshwari, after a lower court protected him against arrest over an accusation that the platform was used to spread hate."

Really wondering why Twitter is continuing its presence in a country where its employees are criminally prosecuted, merely for being Twitter employees.

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USA has the ability to make Zuckerberg face a panel when they have some problems with the way Facebook has been functioning, India doesn't. I am sure they would have been happier to summon Jack Dorsey instead, but he would probably not feel any obligation to appear before an Indian court/panel.

It's even more ridiculous when you realize Twitter's India unit (and Maheshwari) is only there to sell ads and do marketing. It really has no control over the content you see on Twitter's apps and websites.

Why wouldn't Twitter trade their employees for money? There's no shortage of potential employees in India to replace any that the police might arrest. As long as it's the employees suffering most of the consequences while Twitter receives most of the benefits, they're going to do what all profit first entities would do and let the employees suffer.

> Really wondering why Twitter is continuing its presence in a country where its employees are criminally prosecuted, merely for being Twitter employees.

Revenue and Profits. Just look up how much Twitter India made last quarter. The figures are not insignificant.

You get a waiver from legal persecution when you comply with the new IT law, something Twitter hasn't done yet.

The answer to your final question is almost always money. The English-speaking upper echelons of Indian society are a significant presence on the internet.

What is intriguing is the fact that twitter in India is dominated by the elites or those at the top of the wealth pyramid i.e. the richest 5% of the population. These people have tremendous power in Indian society and hence their current right-wing regime is paranoid about this section being publicly critical of the government via twitter.

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