Twitter India appoints new officer, but no let-up in number of grievances

Twitter, which is already on choppy waters in India, has appointed its global legal policy director Jeremy Kessel as the grievance officer in India, a day after Dharmendra Chatur quit the post. But even there, the microblogging site found itself in trouble.

The appointment of California-based Hermy Kessel, however, is not in line with new IT rules. The new IT guidelines mandate that all nodal officials, including the grievance redressal officer, should be residents of India.

Chatur, who was recently appointed as the microblogging site’s grievance officer in India, had resigned over Twitter’s tussle with the government in regards to compliance with the new IT rules.

The new law also mandates social media companies with more than 50 lakh users to form a grievance redressal mechanism to address complaints from users and victims as well as appoint a grievance officer to be the point-person for the complainants. The rules say the firm must share the name and contact details of the grievance officer on its website.

Also read: Twitter MD named in FIR over distorted India map

On June 5, the Union Ministry of Electronics had given Twitter a last notice to comply with the new rules.

Twitter on June 9 informed the government that it is trying its best to comply, has appointed a nodal contractual person and resident grievance officer on a contractual basis and was finalizing the appointment of a chief compliance officer.

After Chatur’s exit, the social networking site, however, was left with no grievance officer in India, as mandated by the new guidelines.

Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government on Monday moved the Supreme Court against an order of the Karnataka High Court granting interim protection from arrest to Twitter India’s executive Manish Maheshwari with regard to an FIR filed over a video showing an assault on a Muslim Man in Uttar Pradesh.

The FIR, filed by Uttar Pradesh police said that the video gave a false communal narrative, and was widely shared on Twitter.