IT Rules: Industry, government exploring option of establishing committees at intermediaries for grievance redressal

IFF says the proposed exemptions in the code are ambiguous.

Not just grievance appellate committees or a self regulatory body, the industry and the Indian government have also been exploring the idea of establishing internal appellate committees at intermediaries, sources told Moneycontrol.

Essentially, this would be a two-tier grievance redressal system where an intermediary would establish the committee at a level above grievance officers.

If a user is aggrieved by the decision of a grievance officer, then they can appeal it at this proposed committee of an intermediary, sources said.

The need for this stems from the proposed amendment to the Information Technology Rules 2021, where government-established grievance appellate committees were proposed because the Centre felt that the current grievance redressal mechanism was not working properly.

However, later the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) clarified that it was also open to the formation of an industry-established self regulatory body.

Since then deliberations have been underway, with industry body Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) spearheading the creation of this self-regulatory body.

Recently, digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) obtained and released a version of IAMAI’s draft ‘Code for Establishing a Self Regulatory Grievance Redressal Board’.

However, according to a report by Reuters, Google has ‘grave reservations’ about developing a self regulatory body for the social media sector.

Google was worried that this body could mean that external reviews of decisions could force the platform to reinstate content, even if it violated its internal policies, the Reuters report had said.

While Snap and ShareChat also voiced their concern about this system, Facebook and Twitter were in support of the proposal, the report added.

Similar concerns have also been raised regarding the proposed government-established grievance appellate committees.

Industry body Nasscom in their submission regarding the draft amendments had urged the government to ‘ensure independence and neutrality’ of the committee.

This third option of appointing a committee at the intermediary level is currently being discussed at the ministry.

“A few intermediaries have been championing the cause for this committee at the intermediary level,” a source said.

Moneycontrol has reached out to Meta, Snap, Sharechat, Google and Twitter for comments in this regard and the article will be updated when a response is received.

However, this proposal is also not devoid of concerns.

“How would you ensure the independence of this internal committee?” a source asked.  Second, it would be difficult to establish industry wide standards for redressing grievances.

“What will happen to startups? Not everyone will have the capacity to establish such committees,” a source said.

It is not clear whether worldwide there are such two-tier grievance redressal systems at companies, but currently there is an example of a self regulatory body for social media companies in New Zealand.

In July, Meta, Google, Tiktok, Amazon and Twitter signed a code of practice that they would follow for self regulation.

In India, under the IT Rules 2021, self regulatory bodies currently exist for OTT platforms called the Digital Media Content Regulatory Council (DMCRC) and the Ministry of Broadcasting-registered Digital Publisher Content Grievances Council (DPCGC).