Recall few weeks ago when India Government take on numerous tech giants and Twitter became the worst hit. Having received backlash, Twitter immediately indicated willingness to comply with India’s new social media regulations known as the IT Act. Twitter in an attempt to comply with the country’s new technology laws and easy tension between them and the Indian Government appointed two new executives. Reports by Bloomberg say, one of the new executives is a chief compliance officer who will also serve the role of grievance officer, and the other is a nodal officer, both are required by the country’s Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code which took effect since May.
Twitter decided to quickly make this appointments a week after the Indian government found the social media platform’s efforts to comply with the new rules were insufficient. Under the rules, the companies is required to remove content within 36 hours of receiving a legal order. The country’s rule also requires such companies to have a grievance officer who acknowledges users’ complaints and grievances within 24 hours, a chief compliance officer, and a contact person who would be readily available to respond to law enforcement agencies all hours of the day.
In a hearing, the judge found that Twitter’s appointment of an employee through a third-party contractor to be the grievance and compliance officer was highly “unacceptable.” The rules require that officer to be a senior staff member. The government argued Twitter to have lost its legal immunity for failing to adhere to the new rules, making it legally liable for content posted by its users in India. In May, it was reported that Indian Police raided Twitter’s India offices after the platform labeled a government official’s tweets as “manipulated media.” Again in June, a government minister warned the platform there could be “unintended consequences” if it failed to comply with the new rules that have been laid down.
A representative of Twitter in Indian in an email says “We remain committed to safeguarding the voices and privacy of those using our service.” He added “We have taken significant steps towards compliance to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and have kept the Indian Government closely informed of our progress”. The Indian government will now examine whether the appointments are per the rules, Solicitor representing the Federal Government, said during the hearing. The court will hear the case again on Aug. 10.
Other Tech companies including Google and Facebook have since also rolled out plans to align with the new directive, to forestall further animosity with the Indian state.
Olagoke Ajibola is a creative writer and content producer with an eye for details and excellence. He has a demonstrated history of telling stories for TV, Film and Online. Aside from being fascinated by the power of imagination, his other interest are travel, sport, reading and meeting people.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
