In Twitter vs Indian government, the social media giant blinks

The microblogging site Twitter has been in the news for its bitter battle with the Government of India over the new digital rules, which it said were against the Constitution. The social media giant, which had lost legal protection from prosecution over users’ posts after its failure to comply with new digital rules, today appointed its Resident Grievance Officer for India, and also released the “transparency report“, the two key requirements as per the new IT rules.

It took Twitter more than a month to comply with the government policy.

As per Twitter’s website, Vinay Prakash is the Resident Grievance Officer (RGO). Users can contact him using an email ID listed on the page.” Twitter can be contacted in India at the following address: 4th Floor, The Estate, 121 Dickenson Road, Bangalore 560 042,” the information on the page said.

The new IT rules in India mandate, among other requirements, the appointment of three key personnel — chief compliance officer, nodal officer and grievance officer by social media platforms with nearly 1.75 crore users in India. All three personnel have to be residents in India.

Also Read | All you need to know about the government-Twitter spat

As per the rules that came into effect on May 26, it is mandatory for large digital platforms to publish monthly compliance reports that details complaints received and the number of web links or URLs action was taken against.

The transparency report that covers data from May 26 to June 25 this year includes harassment, defamation, terrorism and impersonation among others.

A total of 37 complaints were registered, of which 20 were defamation, the report said, adding that the company has acted against 132 tweets related to these complaints and flagged over 22,000.

Over 4,000 tweets promoting terrorism and over 18,000 tweets promoting nudity and child sexual exploitation have also been flagged, the report said. 

The company also released an “Information request”, which includes the number of government information requests and the number of accounts specified in them.

Twitter had previously appointed Dharmendra Chatur as its interim resident grievance officer for India as required by the IT rules. However, Chatur stepped down last month.

Twitter was accused by the government of deliberate defiance over the new IT rules, despite repeated reminders. After a month-long controversy and the court hearings, Twitter had informed the Delhi High Court on July 8 that it has appointed an interim chief compliance officer, who is a resident of India, and that it will make an endeavour to fill the regular position within eight weeks as per the new IT Rules.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Google were quick to respond to the new IT rules. Facebook reportedly acted over 30 million content pieces across 10 violation categories between May 15 and June 15. Google said it removed 59,350 links from its products, including YouTube.