IT Min asks social media cos to furnish details of grievance officers, others

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has written to all significant social media intermediaries, asking them to furnish details such as the names and contact details of their resident grievance officer, chief compliance officer, and nodal contact person as soon as possible.

In a letter, the group coordinator for cyber-law under the Ministry has asked all significant social media intermediaries to furnish these details along with their physical contact address in India and a status report on compliance of these norms. If a social media intermediary claims to be not significant, it must provide reasons for the same, along with “registered users on each of the services” provided by the platform.

Guidelines issued in February required all significant social media intermediaries to designate executives for these roles by May 26. Social media companies that have more than 50 lakh users in India are designated ‘significant’ social media intermediaries.

On Monday, The Indian Express had reported that of the three major social media intermediaries, namely Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, none had appointed a resident grievance officer, a chief compliance officer, and a nodal contact person as required by the government.

Though these companies have still not appointed executives in these roles, Facebook said that it aimed to comply with the government norms and was in discussion with the government on a few more issues.

Meanwhile, a Google spokesperson said the company respected India’s legislative process and had a long history of responding to government requests to remove content where the content either violated local local law or its own product policies.