Twitter in soup after petitioner opposes key appointment, cites 'non-employee' admission

In fresh trouble for Twitter, the appointment of Vinay Prakash as the Chief Compliance Officer and Resident Grievance Officer was opposed in the Delhi High Court. Filing a rejoinder in the case against the social media giant for its alleged non-compliance with the Centre's IT rules, advocate Amit Acharya stressed that Prakash's appointment is "devoid of merit" as he is not an employee but merely a contingent worker. According to him, every decision passed in that capacity will invite further litigation and render the Twitter users remediless. 

He also claimed that Twitter had failed to substantiate its claims of publishing job announcements and filling up the aforesaid positions within 8 weeks. Amit Acharya's plea argues that the microblogging platform must perform its statutory and executive duties as it is a "significant social media intermediary" as per the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. Emphasising that he is deprived of his statutory right to lodge a complaint in the capacity as a Twitter user, the lawyer had sought a direction for the appointment of a Resident Grievance Officer. 

At the outset, Justice Rekha Palli made it clear that Twitter has no choice but to comply if the rules are in place. After weeks of inaction, Twitter India announced on July 11 that it has hired the services of Vinay Prakash. Apart from informing the IT Ministry about its physical contact address in India, it also published the compliance report for the period from May 26, 2021, to June 25, 2021.

New rules for social media intermediaries:

• Appoint a Chief Compliance Officer who shall be responsible for ensuring compliance with the Act and Rules. Such a person should be a resident of India
• Appoint a Nodal Contact Person for 24x7 coordination with law enforcement agencies. Such a person shall be a resident of India
• Appoint a Resident Grievance Officer who shall perform the functions mentioned under Grievance Redressal Mechanism. Such a person shall be a resident of India
• Publish a monthly compliance report mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken on the complaints as well as details of contents removed proactively by the significant social media intermediary
• An intermediary upon receiving actual knowledge in the form of an order by a court or being notified by the Appropriate government or its agencies through an authorized officer should not host or publish any information which is prohibited under any law in relation to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, public order, friendly relations with foreign countries etc
• In cases where significant social media intermediaries remove or disable access to any information on their own accord, then a prior intimation for the same shall be communicated to the user who has shared that information with a notice explaining the grounds and reasons for such action. Users must be provided with an adequate and reasonable opportunity to dispute the action taken by the intermediary