Google Unsure About India’s Self-Regulatory Grievance Appellate Committee

Google has expressed doubts over the structure, composition and functionality of a self-regulated grievance appellate committee (GAC).

The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) earlier proposed the plan to form the GAC, along with Twitter and Meta. According to an ET report citing sources, Google, Twitter and Meta, along with IAMAI, have held a few meetings over the last few days to discuss the structure and the composition of the GAC.

Meta and Twitter supported IAMAI’s proposals, however, Google’s executives have opposed the GAC, stating that it would force the companies to change their internal policies on how they regulate content.

A Google spokesperson was cited as saying that the company has held a preliminary meeting with the MeitY and discussions were going on with the industry as well as the government. The spokesperson added that the tech giant will look to find the best possible solution.

In the discussions, it was proposed that the self-regulated GAC would be headed by either a retired chief justice or a Supreme Court or high court judge. Other panel members would include members from the industry, independent tech policy experts and members from the government. 

However, it did not seem likely that executives from the social media intermediaries or internet companies would make it to the GAC panel. The government has been working on the Grievance Redressal Appellate since the draft IT rules amendment was introduced in 2021. 

The government wants to make the grievance appellate committee as the sole power to regulate content on social media as per the new IT rules. However, legal experts have floated the idea of an independent GAC.

In an earlier conversation with Inc42, Krishnesh, an associate litigation counsel at Internet Freedom Foundation said, “The biggest issue is that this could make the Grievance Appellate Committee the arbiter of permissible speech on the Internet.”

Experts are also of the opinion that such a GAC would lead to more censorship in India, a problem which has risen significantly over the last few years.

Apart from the Internet Freedom Foundation, Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) also raised its concerns regarding the nature of the Grievance Appellate Committee in India. The industry association had called the move similar to the government taking over the role of the judiciary.

All the parties have reached out to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to seek more time for the GAC. This was also an issue that was cited by the AIC; the association called the timelines too short to comply with a vague set of compliance requirements.