The platform was forced to appoint several local officers to handle the on-ground requests, as per the law. Also, it has published a compliance report as mandated by the same law.
Complying to Law After Losing Immunity
The Indian government has formulated a new IT law called the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, in February this year and brought them into execution from late May. This is aimed at regulating the social media platforms and providing a straight and easy way for aggrieved parties to approach the platform to satisfy their complaints. Thus, under the new IT law, Twitter, like any other social media platform operating in India should appoint compliance, grievance, and a nodal official to address on-ground cases. While the other companies like Google, Facebook, and Telegram have already complied with it, Twitter delayed it by a month, triggering some intimidation tactics by the Indian government like sending police to local Twitter Offices for random inspection. This led Twitter to issue a statement that it’s “concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve.” And soon, the platform appointed a grievance officer who resigned after days of being set up and had none as per rules to oversee the position. As the deadline has passed, the Indian government said to the Delhi court that Twitter’s immunity is withdrawn as it failed to comply with the new rules. This shall make Twitter responsible for all the posts that are shared by its users on the platform, and may face hefty and unnecessary charges for that. Thus, before the situation is harsh, Twitter announced a new grievance officer named Vinay Prakash and shared his contact details. Also, as per the rules, Twitter has published a compliance report to justify its pursuance of the new laws.
