SUMMARY
MeitY will also ask social media platforms to address complaints related to certain serious issues within a timeline of 24 hours or 36 hours
Tech giant Meta, microblogging site Twitter pushed for a self-regulated grievance appellate committee
To bring more clarity to the rules, the government will also simplify the language of IT rules based on industry feedback
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Despite pushbacks from industry experts and stakeholders, the government plans to keep its proposed grievance appellate committee (GAC). The committee was proposed under the draft amendments to IT Rules, 2021, which have discussed several changes to the existing rules.
The Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) will also ask social media platforms such as Facebook, and Twitter to address complaints related to certain serious issues within a timeline of 24 hours or 36 hours, ET reported citing sources. Those issues include complaints such as child sexual abuse material or nudity, among others.
While tech giant Meta, microblogging site Twitter pushed for a self-regulated grievance appellate committee, the government has decided to stick to the proposal of the government-appointed committee as it is ready with a revised IT Rules Draft.
As per a senior official quoted in the report, social media platforms are averse to setting up grievance redressal systems. “They have been arguing that it will add to their compliance requirement,” the official added.
There are many cases where social media platforms don’t take action swiftly for user complaints that leaves users with no other option than going to court, the official said. When it comes to complaints related to children and women, it is important to solve those issues immediately. Hence, the government has decided to keep a shorter timeline for content takedown.
To bring more clarity to the rules, the government will also simplify the language of IT rules based on industry feedback.
Further, to tighten its grip on the social media platforms, the government had notified the IT Rules (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), 2021 for social media apps, online news portals, news aggregators and OTT platforms in February 2021.
Earlier this year, the government released draft amendments to the rules when the contentious grievance redressal mechanism was proposed for the first time. Many industry bodies, lobby groups and tech giants have raised concerns about the GAC.
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