<\/p>\n
India will set up one or more grievance committees to oversee content moderation decisions of social media firms, it said today, moving ahead with a proposal that has rattled Meta, Google and Twitter in the key overseas market.<\/p>\n
In an amendment to the nation\u2019s new IT law that went into effect last year, the Indian government said any individual aggrieved by the social media\u2019s appointed grievance officer may appeal to the Grievance Appellate Committee, which will comprise a chairperson and two whole time members appointed by the government. (In compliance with the IT rules, social media firms last year appointed grievance and other officers in India to hear feedback and complaints from their users.) The amendment goes into effect Friday, a notice said.<\/p>\n
The Grievance Appellate Committee will have the power to reverse the social media firm\u2019s decision, the government said. Individuals will be allowed to file their appeal within 30 days from the date of receipt of communication from the grievance officer. The designated committees will also be required to \u201cdeal with such appeal expeditiously\u201d and bring its resolution within 30 days, the amendment says.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery order passed by the Grievance Appellate Committee shall be complied with by the intermediary concerned and a report to that effect shall be uploaded on its website,\u201d New Delhi said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The latest amendment to the IT law also requires social media firms to acknowledge user complaints within 24 hours and address them within 15 days. In the event the request is for content removal, the complaint should be resolved within 72 hours, the amendment said.<\/p>\n
Shortly after India proposed creating such panels, the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC), part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), both raised concerns about the independence of such committees if the government controlled their formation. Both the firms represent tech giants, including Google, Meta and Twitter.<\/p>\n
The decision to form panels follows tension between the Indian government and social media firms Meta and Twitter over the content and accounts they keep or remove. Twitter received heat from New Delhi for not blocking some tweets last year that the Indian government had deemed objectionable.<\/p>\n
Twitter\u00a0labeled a tweet from Sambit Patra, the spokesperson of India\u2019s ruling party BJP, in May last year as \u201cmanipulated media.\u201d Days later, a special squad of Delhi police that investigates terrorism and other crimes made a surprise visit to two of Twitter\u2019s offices\u00a0in the country to seek information about Twitter\u2019s rationale to term Patra\u2019s tweets as manipulated.<\/p>\n
Twitter at the time said it was \u201cconcerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve,\u201d and this year moved to sue the Indian government to challenge some of the block orders on tweets and accounts.<\/p>\n
Lawyers of Elon Musk, who as of today owns Twitter, earlier raised concerns about Twitter\u2019s lawsuit against the Indian government, saying such a move places the company\u2019s third-largest market at risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India\u2019s minister of state for electronics and information technology, told Reuters on Friday that the government expects the Musk-owned Twitter to comply with the country\u2019s IT rules.<\/p>\n \u201cOur rules and laws for intermediaries remain the same regardless of who owns the platforms. So, the expectation of compliance with Indian laws and rules remains,\u201d he told the outlet.<\/p>\n The New Delhi-based advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation said Friday that the Grievance Appellate Committee is \u201cessentially a government censorship body\u201d that would hear appeals against the decisions of social media platforms to remove content or not, thus \u201cmaking bureaucrats arbiters of our online free speech.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis will incentivise platforms to remove\/suppress any speech unpalatable to the government or those exerting political pressure and increase government control & power since the government will be effectively able to also decide what content must be displayed by platforms,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Jagmeet Singh contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n