With Twitter India on Sunday hints towards complying completely with the IT rules by appointing Vinay Prakash as the resident grievance office, the IT & Communications minister Ashwini Vaishnav on Sunday said the new information technology rules will empower and protect the users at the same time.
Adding further, he said the new IT rules will ensure a safer and more responsible social media ecosystem in India.
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.
“Reviewed the implementation and compliance of Information Technology Rules, 2021 along with my colleague Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar Ji. These guidelines are empowering and protecting users and will ensure a safer and more responsible social media ecosystem in India,” Vaishnav said in a post on Twitter’s Indian competitor Koo platform.
All significant social media companies, with over 50 lakh user bases 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 a resident in India.
While Twitter has named its Resident Grievance Officer for India, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has challenged the new IT rules for social media intermediaries requiring the messaging app to trace chats and make provisions to identify the first originator of the information, saying they violate the right to privacy and are unconstitutional.
WhatsApp further alleged the requirement of intermediaries enabling the identification of the first originator of information in India upon government or court order puts end-to-end encryption and its benefits “at-risk”.
Some of the media houses have also challenged the new IT rules and the matter is sub-judice.