Top social media companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp have all appointed grievance officers to comply with the new IT rules that came into effect on May 26, 2021.
Facebook has appointed Spoorthi Priya as the Grievance Officer, who will be also looking after complaints for Instagram, as per the company website. WhatsApp has appointed Paresh B Lal, who will be based out of Hyderabad. Moneycontrol has learnt that the messaging platform also appointed chief compliance officer and nodal officer.
While Google has named the US-based Joe Griar as the Grievance officer, it is not clear if the company would appoint an India-based employee for the position as per the new IT rules. An email sent to Google seeking clarification regarding the same did not elicit any response.
Twitter, which has been at loggerheads with the government over compliance with the IT rules citing privacy concerns, has named US-based Jeremy Kessel for grievance officer, and Dharmendra Chatur, a partner at a law firm representing Twitter, as the interim resident grievance officer.
Tanya Mampilly, Legal Content Policy Manager, is LinkedIn’s Grievance Officer for India.
Indian social media platforms Koo, a Twitter rival and Chingari, a Tiktok clone, appointed Rahul Satyakam and Deepak Salvi as their grievance officers respectively. Chingari has appointed Aditya Kothari and Biswatma Nayak as chief compliance officer and nodal officer, respectively.
Koo has also appointed people for the roles. Aprameya Radhakrishna, CEO and co-founder, Koo said during a recent interaction that the IT rules does not mandate the companies to name these officials.
Indian social networking platform ShareChat has appointed GT Thomas Phillippe as Chief Compliance Officer, and Harleen Sethi as Nodal and Resident Grievance Officer.
Apart from Indian social media platform such as ShareChat, Koo and Chingari, the other companies are yet to appoint two key officers mandated under the new IT rules, Chief Compliance Officer and Nodal, in the country.
Emails sent to the companies seeking progress on the appointments did not elicit any response. Twitter, while not sharing any specifics, said in a statement, "Twitter has been and remains deeply committed to India, and serving the vital public conversation taking place on the service. We have assured the Government of India that Twitter is making every effort to comply with the new Guidelines, and an overview on our progress has been duly shared. We will continue our constructive dialogue with the Indian Government." New IT rules
The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules), 2021 was notified on February 25, and the large social media companies with over 50 lakh users, which are classified by the government as ‘intermediaries’, had three months to comply with the new rules, which was by May 25.
The new rules insisted on these platforms appointing a resident grievance officer, chief compliance officer and a nodal contact person. They also mandated major social media intermediaries (with over 50 lakh users) to have a physical contact address in India published on its website or mobile application or both.
Swift grievance redressal mechanism within 15 days, and active monitoring of harmful content using automated tools, and removal/disabling access to disturbing content were also part of the mandate. They were also required to publish a monthly compliance report on the same on a monthly basis.
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