Twitter in its response to the government said that it has appointed a nodal contact person and a resident grievance officer on a contractual basis till it recruits to fill the positions on a permanent basis.
In a strongly-worded letter to Twitter’s deputy General Counsel Jim Baker, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), on June 5, had said that the company’s refusal till date to hire a grievance officer demonstrates Twitter’s lack of commitment and efforts towards providing a safe experience to its users in India.
MeitY had termed it as the ‘last one notice’ to comply with the new IT Rules, failing which the exemption from liability under IT Act 2000 will stand withdrawn and Twitter will be liable for consequences as per the Act and other Indian penal laws.
Twitter’s response
Twitter in its response said, “We have appointed a Nodal Contact Person and a Resident Grievance Officer on a contractual basis while we recruit to fill the positions on a permanent basis. In addition, we are in advanced stages of finalising the appointment to the role of Chief Compliance Officer and we plan to provide additional details to you in the next several days, and at the latest within a week.” BusinessLine has seen the letter.
It mentioned that Twitter remains committed to serving people of India by providing a platform to serve the public conversation in India, especially during ‘critical moments and emergency situations’ such as those seen globally in recent months.
The new IT Rules came into effect from May 26, which requires significant social media intermediaries —those with over 50 lakh users —to appoint a grievance officer, nodal officer and a chief compliance officer, who should be residing in India.
Companies like Facebook, Google and WhatsApp have already appointed their respective grievance officers as per the new social media rules.