Twitter Appoints US Employee As New Grievance Officer In Violation Of Centre's Rules

The appointment comes a day after the resignation of Dharmendra Chatur, who was recently appointed as interim resident grievance officer for India by Twitter on May 31.

Outlook Web Desk

Updated on: 28 June 2021 3:47 pm

A day after Twitter's interim resident grievance officer for India stepped down, the Jack Dorsey-owned microblogging site has appointed its Global Legal Policy Director Jeremy Kessel as the new grievance officer. The appointment, though in keeping with the Indian government's new rules for social networking websites to have a grievance officer, is in violation of the mandate of only appointing an Indian national to the position.

The appointment comes a day after the resignation of Dharmendra Chatur, who was recently appointed as interim resident grievance officer for India by Twitter on May 31. The resignation had left Twitter without the Centre-mandated officer to address complaints from Indian subscribers. The social media company's website no longer displays his name, as required under Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. Twitter declined to comment on the development.

The development comes at a time when the micro-blogging platform has been engaged in a tussle with the Indian government over the new social media rules. The government has slammed Twitter for deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country’s new IT rules. The new rules which came into effect on May 25 mandate social media companies to establish a grievance redressal mechanism for resolving complaints from the users or victims.

All significant social media companies, with over 50 lakh user base shall appoint a grievance officer to deal with such complaints and share the name and contact details of such officers. The big social media companies are mandated to appoint a chief compliance officer, a Nodal Contact Person and a resident grievance officer. All of them should be resident in India.

Twitter in response to the final notice issued by the government on June 5 had said that it intends to comply with the new IT rules and will share details of the chief compliance officer. In the meantime, the microblogging platform had appointed Chatur as interim resident grievance officer for India.

Without an interim grievance officer, government sources said that the company had lost legal protection as an intermediary and could be legally held responsible for all content posted by its users on the platform.

(With inputs from PTI)