Twitter appoints interim Chief Compliance Officer for India

Twitter has appointed interim Chief Compliance Officer in India to comply with the Indian government’s new IT rules.

Key Points

• Twitter appointed Chief Compliance Officer after a prolonged battle with Indian government over its new IT rules.
• India announced new IT rules in February, 2021 which was implemented on May 25. It requires tech companies in India like Facebook, WhatsApp, Google etc to appoint chief compliance officer, nodal officer and grievance officer in India.

Background

When new IT Rules were first brought on May 25, Twitter India had asked government for more time to comply with new IT Rules while WhatsApp & Facebook appointed their respective grievance officers.

New IT Rule

Indian government notified the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 in February 2021. New rules deal with social media and over-the-top (OTT) platforms. Rules were framed under section 87 (2) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. Under the new rules, resident grievance officer will be appointed under larger grievance redressal mechanism. Content on social media platforms will be monitored actively and monthly compliance reports will be made available for Indian users. Authorities in India can now ask these platforms to identify origin of any message.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2021