Twitter has appointed a resident grievance officer in India days after Twitter lost the liability protections on user-generated content in the South Asian nation over non-compliance with India’s IT rules, TechCrunch reported.
Previously, India’s IT Minister made a statement that he has chosen to disregard Section 230 of the Communications Act, which protects social media companies from being held liable for things that users post. This could be a big problem not only for Twitter, but also for other social media companies who are based in the United States and have offices in other countries.
TechCrunch reported that India’s new IT rules were unveiled in February of this year and went into effect in late May. Twitter has also published a compliance report, which is another requirement listed in India’s new rules.
Twitter posted a Transparency Report about User Grievances & Proactive Monitoring. This report is in regards to how Twitter processes grievances from users in India.
In India, Twitter users can report grievances via the Grievance mechanism by using the contact details available on the Grievance Officer – India page. Twitter does not require such reporters to be registered with Twitter, or have a Twitter user ID in order to file a grievance. Separately, global users can report directly from the Tweet or account in question while logged into Twitter, or reports can be made via Twitter’s Help Center.
Twitter also posted information about their new Grievance Officers. It includes contact information for United States Grievance Officer Jeremy Kessel. It also includes contact information for Resident Grievance Officer Vinay Prakash, who is in India.
I find it interesting that Twitter India will accept grievance reports from people who do not have a Twitter account. How would a person without an account see anything on Twitter – including something they want to report? I can see where this could be used for brigading.