Engaged in a bitter battle with global social media companies over its new rules for IT intermediaries, the government had some respite with top companies such as Google, Facebook, and WhatsApp agreeing to appoint statutory officers in line with the guidelines. Twitter, which so far steadfastly refused to comply with the rules, proposed the name of an outside consultant, though this was summarily rejected by the government as they were not in consonance with the guidelines.
The fresh move comes amidst raging debate over the new IT rules that has also seen WhatsApp move the Delhi high court over its denial to track the origins of "unlawful" messages, and Twitter accuse the government of "dangerous overreach inconsistent with open, democratic principles".
Friday saw a change as majority of companies came forward and expressed willingness to start complying with a section of the provisions. LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft), Telegram, Google, Facebook and WhatsApp shared details of their chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and grievance officer with the IT ministry. Having these officers is a mandate under the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 which were announced on February 25 this year. Even Indian companies such as Koo (local rival to Twitter) and Sharechat have made the appointments.
However, Twitter remains the only global player that is still playing hardball. The Jack Dorsey-co-founded company, which has been in the middle of a raging regulatory storm in India over a variety of issues, did respond to the government, sharing details of a lawyer working in a law firm in India as their nodal contact person and grievance officer, the sources said. However, the government rejected its choice. "The rules require that these designated officers of the significant social media companies (those having more than 50,00,000 users) must be the employees of the company and a resident in India," the sources said, while explaining why Twitter’s nomination was rejected.
Social media platforms have “no choice” but to comply with India’s new Information Technology Rules for digital media, the Delhi high court said. “Unless the rules have been stayed, they have to follow them,” Justice Rekha Palli said, while issuing a notice to the Centre and Twitter seeking their stand on a lawyer’s plea that claimed the US company failed to comply with the rules that came into force from February25.
Twitter assured the court it had complied with the rules and already appointed a resident grievance officer, adding it would file its response to the plea. But the Centre disputed the claim. The petitioner said the grievance officer had not been appointed according to the rules. The HC said it would examine the issue once the replies were in by the next date of hearing in July.
