Twitter appoints grievance officer in India, publishes first compliance report

Twitter has appointed Indian resident Vinay Prakash as its new resident grievance officer (RGO) in India, complying with the new IT Act. Twitter updated Prakash’s name as the new RGO on its website and provided an email-ID through which users can contact him.

“Twitter can be contacted in India at the following address: 4th Floor, The Estate, 121 Dickenson Road, Bangalore 560 042,” the website said. The microblogging platform has also published its first compliance report from May 26 to June 25, which is also a requirement under the new rules.

The new regulations, which came into effect from My 26 this year, state that social media platforms with over 50 lakh users must have a chief compliance officer, an RGO and a nodal contact person, all of whom should be Indian residents. The platforms are also expected to publish a compliance report every month, failing which they may lose their legal status in the country.

Twitter had previously appointed Dharmendra Chatur as its RGO, but he had resigned last month. The social media giant was pulled up by the Delhi High Court for non-compliance with the IT rules recently, where it said that it would need eight weeks to appoint an Indian resident as its RGO and also that it would publish its first compliance report by July 11.

Also read: Twitter seeks 8 weeks to appoint grievance officer in India

Twitter has locked horns with the government over the new IT rules since March this year. Things turned worse when Twitter removed the blue tick from accounts of Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and then IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Twitter had also flagged some tweets by top BJP leaders as ‘manipulated content’.

Twitter has lost its legal shield in India due to non-compliance with the IT rules, and four FIRs have been registered against the social media giant till now. The Four FIRs from Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and Ghaziabad have been filed in the last month in connection with child pornography and the alleged assault on a Muslim man. Other social media giants like Facebook, Instagram and Google had filed their first compliance report on July 3.