Microblogging platform Twitter on Saturday informed the Delhi High Court that it was in the ‘final stages’ of appointing a resident grievance officer, according to news agency ANI.
This is after Twitter’s interim resident grievance officer resigned from his post on June 27.
The source said Dharmendra Chatur, who was recently appointed as interim resident grievance officer for India by Twitter, has quit from the post.
Following this, the San Francisco-headquartered company had appointed US national Jeremy Kessel as its new resident grievance officer in India, which put it in violation of the new rules.
Under the new IT rules of India, social media firms are required to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person and a resident grievance officer, all of whom should be Indian residents.
If these platforms do not comply with the digital rules, they will lose their intermediary status, which protects them from liability for any third-party data they host.
According to a government official, Twitter had previously lost its legal shield as an intermediary in India, and is now liable for users posting any unlawful content.
Twitter recently briefly blocked IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from accessing his own account over alleged violation of US copyright law — a move that was immediately slammed by the minister as being arbitrary and in gross violation of IT rules.
Meanwhile, Prasad on Saturday praised major social media companies such as Google, Facebook, and Instagram for releasing their first compliance report on the voluntary removal of offensive posts under new IT rules, calling it a significant step toward transparency.
“Nice to see significant social media platforms like Google, Facebook and Instagram following the new IT Rules. First compliance report on voluntary removal of offensive posts published by them as per IT Rules is a big step towards transparency,” Prasad tweeted.
(With inputs from PTI)
