Twitter Has Failed To Comply With IT Rules, Centre Tells HC

The Central government on Monday informed the Delhi High Court that Twitter has failed to comply with the IT rules. 

In an affidavit filed before the Delhi High Court, the central government has stated the following main points indicating non-compliance by the microblogging website.

• Chief Compliance Officer has not been appointed;
• The position of the Resident Grievance Officer is vacant;
• The position of Nodal Contact Person (even on an interim basis) is vacant;
• The physical contact address, which was shown to be there on 29th May 2021 is once not again available on Twitter’s website.

The Central Government's affidavit reiterates that failure to comply with the IT Rules takes away the immunity provided to intermediaries under section 79 of the IT Act making the intermediary liable for offensive third party content.

It is pertinent to note that Twitter had appointed California based Jeremy Kessel as Grievance Officer for India post the resignations tendered by Twitter's interim Resident Grievance Officer and interim Nodal Contact Person.

Twitter has been in the line of fire post the notification of the amended intermediary guidelines. There have been multiple FIRs filed naming Twitter as one of the parties for offensive content posted by users on the social media platform. 

The response from the government comes after yet another petition pointed out to the non compliance of the IT Rules with regards to Twitter's failure to appoint a Grievance Redressal Officer. The petitioner highlighted that he could not raise a complaint with Twitter against certain twitter users since the contact details mentioned on the website belong to U.S. Citizen based out of California.