Twitter has appointed two new executives in India in order to ensure compliance with the country’s new IT laws, the company’s lawyer told the Delhi High Court, on 6 August 2021. As per the submission made with the HC, one of the two executives is a compliance officer who will also serve as a grievance officer. The other appointee is a nodal officer. The appointments were necessitated the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code which took effect in India in May 2021.
The appointments were made just a week after the Centre detected shortfalls in the efforts made by the micro-blogging platform to comply with the newly notified IT rules. All social media companies are required to remove any content that has been red-flagged by the concerned authorities, within 36 hours of receiving the legal order. Besides this, all such companies are required to appoint a grievance officer for acknowledging users’ complaints, along with a chief compliance officer, and a contact person for responding to any communication sent by law enforcement agencies.
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On 28 July 2021, it was found that the grievance and compliance officer appointed by the company was on third-party rolls, which violated the spirit of the IT guidelines. According to the notified guidelines, the official needs to be a senior staff member.
In a legal submission made last month, the government had argued that the social media giant had lost its legal immunity by failing to adhere to the rules, making it legally accountable for content posted by its users. Before this, in June 2021, the platform was warned against “unintended consequences” following its failure to comply with the new rules.
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On 10 August 2021, the Indian government will review if the new appointments have been made in compliance with the IT rules.
