Delhi HC gives Twitter two weeks to come up with timeline for appointing Grievance Officer

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday gave two days’ time to Twitter to come up with a particular timeline for appointing a Grievance Officer in compliance with India’s new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021.

“ It’s been more than two weeks…If the interim Grievance Officer ran away on June 21, the least Twitter was expected to do was to appoint a fresh officer in these 14 days before the matter came up today,” Justice Rekha Palli remarked.

Twitter admitted that it was presently not in compliance with the 2021 IT Rules because it was within the technique of appointing its Grievance Officer and the Nodal Officer.

“How long does the process of appointing a Grievance Officer take? If Twitter thinks it can take as much time as it wants in our country, I will not permit that,” Justice Palli cautioned the micro-blogging web site.

Judge’s warning

Justice Palli directed Twitter’s counsel to come up with a transparent image of the compliance timeline by July 8, the subsequent date of listening to. “Otherwise you [Twitter] are in trouble,” the decide warned.

Senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, representing Twitter, sought time to search instruction on the precise timeline for finishing the appointment of the Grievance Officer.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma, representing the Centre, stated there had been a non-compliance of the IT Rules by Twitter for over 42 days. “Facebook has removed 3 crore contents, Instagram has removed 18 lakh, Google has removed 3 lakh, Twitter can certainly do better,” the ASG stated.

‘Misleading submission’

The High Court additionally took sturdy objection to Twitter’s counsel informing it on the final date of listening to that the micro-blogging web site had already appointed a Resident Grievance Officer on May 28, 2021. In view of the assertion, the High Court had granted time to Twitter to submit a counter-affidavit.

“The said reply has been filed. A perusal shows that Twitter had as on May 31, 2021 only appointed only an interim resident grievance officer, which fact was not brought to the notice of the court,” the High Court famous.

Centre’s reply

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), in an affidavit filed earlier than the High Court, acknowledged that regardless of three months being granted to all Significant Social Media Intermediaries (SSMIs) to comply with the brand new IT guidelines, Twitter had failed to totally comply with the identical.

The Ministry stated Twitter had failed to comply with India’s legislation regulating tech corporations rendering their companies as ‘intermediaries’.

Twitter, final week, had knowledgeable the High Court that the interim Resident Grievance Officer and the interim Nodal Contact Person in India had resigned from their positions in June. The tech big had acknowledged that it was within the ultimate levels of appointing a substitute, in the meantime “the grievances of Indian users are being addressed by the Grievance Officer”.

The Meity, nonetheless, identified that as per the small print gleaned from Twitter’s web site, the grievances from India had been presently being dealt with by its personnel located within the United States of America “which amounts to non-compliance with the IT Rules 2021”.

In India, Section 79 of the IT Act shields social media platforms or intermediaries corresponding to Twitter from legal responsibility for any third social gathering data, knowledge, or communication hyperlink made obtainable or hosted by it in sure circumstances.

The Ministry stated when an middleman failed to observe the IT Rules, the middleman could possibly be liable for any punishment beneath any legislation for the time being in power in respect of the offending content material.

The Ministry’s affidavit got here in response to a petition by advocate Amit Acharya, in search of to appoint a Resident Grievance Officer beneath Rule 4 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021.

Mr. Acharya, in his plea filed by advocates Akash Vajpai and Manish Kumar, had claimed that he wished to increase grievance in opposition to two alleged “offensive and objectionable tweets” on the Resident Grievance Officer.

“However, the petitioner was unable to find the contact details of the Resident Grievance Officer on the website of Twitter,” he had stated.

The petition stated that from February 25, 2021 the Information Technology Rules 2021 had come into impact and the Centre had given three months’ time to each vital social media middleman to comply with the foundations.