Twitter Appoints Officers In Compliance With New IT Rules: Govt Tells HC

In May 2021, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had enacted Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, Rules 2021, where all social media intermediaries with 5 Mn or more users in India have to comply with the guidelines. Owing to the guidelines, social media sites such as Twitter had to confirm appointments of a chief grievance officer, a chief compliance officer and a nodal contact person.

While the guidelines have clearly stated that the three officers must be Indian residents, Twitter appointed California-based legal policy director, Jeremy Kessel days after Dharmendra Chatur joined the post and quit within days. While the appointments came into force, the court had objected to the use of “contingent workers” over “permanent employees” in an affidavit submitted by Twitter.

Putting rest to the five-month-long tussle between the central government and Jack Dorsey-led Twitter has finally come to an end. As reported by Inc42, earlier, Twitter had appointed a chief grievance officer, a chief compliance officer (CCO) and a nodal contact person.

Now, the centre has reportedly submitted a short affidavit stating that the microblogging site has acknowledged that the personnel (chief compliance officer, Nodal Contact Person and regional grievance person) are appointed as the company’s permanent employees and not as ‘contingent workers’.

In an affidavit, that couldn’t be independently verified by Inc42, the ministry told Delhi High Court (HC) that Twitter has provided names, positions and employment contracts of the appointed personnel and that their employment start date is August 4.

Post the appointment confirmed by Twitter, the HC had, on August 10, directed the centre to file a short affidavit in response to Twitter’s affidavit in which the company had shown compliance with IT Rules. The matter is scheduled for another hearing by a single bench headed by Justice Rekha Pillai on October 5.

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