Twitter abides by rules, names grievance officer

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 11

Twitter today named its resident grievance officer in India to comply with the information technology rules that came into effect from May 25. The US social media giant appointed Vinay Prakash as the India grievance officer, sharing his coordinates on its website to enable users to make complaints and report violations.

Empowering users

These guidelines (new IT rules) are empowering and protecting users and will ensure a safer and responsible social media ecosystem in India. – Ashwini Vaishnaw, IT  Minister

The appointment came days after Twitter told the Delhi High Court that it would soon name an interim grievance officer and follow up with a regular appointment in eight weeks.

Twitter has been in a prolonged faceoff with the government over non-compliance with the new IT rules — Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

New IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday reviewed the new rules and termed them “empowering”.

Vaishnaw took to Koo to say: “Reviewed the implementation and compliance of the Information Technology Rules, 2021, along with my colleague Rajeev Chandrasekhar ji. These guidelines are empowering and protecting users and will ensure a safer and responsible social media ecosystem in India.” Joining office on Friday, Vaishnaw had said anyone working or operating in India must honour the law of the land. Under the new rules, all major social media intermediaries with over 50 lakh users in India were mandated to appoint chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and grievance officer and share their details with the government.

Earlier, the government had addressed WhatsApp privacy issues emanating from the new rules and said it respected the right of privacy and ordinary users of WhatsApp had nothing to fear about the new rules.