Govt asks social media giants to appoint grievance redressal officers in India

NEW DELHI: The home ministry has asked social media companies, including Twitter, Facebook and Google, to nominate grievance redressal officers in India and develop a monitoring and filtering mechanism to check content which can spreading rumours, cause social unrest or promoting cyber crimes against women and children.

At a meeting with representatives of Facebook, Google, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram on Wednesday, Union home secretary Rajiv Gauba reviewed actions they had been taken to prevent misuse of such platforms by undesirable elements and miscreants to create unrest and promote activities detrimental to national interest. The meeting was attended by senior officers of the security agencies, ministry of electronics and information technology and department of telecom.

The home secretary urged the social media giants, all of them headquartered outside India, for better cooperation with law enforcement agencies through prompt sharing of information sought for investigation purposes. All social media platforms have assured full cooperation in this regard, said a home ministry statement.

The representatives of social media players briefed the home secretary about actions taken so far to ensure the blocking of websites and removal of objectionable/malicious content. WhatsApp, now owned by Facebook, had recently responded to the government’s concerns regarding its alleged misuse to spread fake news and rumours, which in some cases had led to mob-lynching incidents. It announced a series of measures, including flagging and regulation of forwarded messages.

Gauba called upon the social media companies to take concrete steps to ensure a robust & effective system for preventing misuse of their platforms and asked them to nominate grievance redressal officers in India and develop a monitoring mechanism to promptly remove objectionable content.

The latest review is part of a series of meetings taken by the home secretary with social media platforms to urge them to more responsible and responsive in tracking and pulling down objectionable content as well as online sexual abuse directed at women and children.