Govt To Set Up Appellate Panels To Resolve Social Media Users’ Grievances

New Delhi: In the next three months, the government will appoint grievance appellate committees to give people a platform to file their complaints regarding content on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Any person not satisfied with the decision of a grievance officer appointed by the social media intermediary can approach the grievance appellate committees with an appeal by digital mode, the new rules say. “Every order passed by the Grievance Appellate Committee shall be complied with by the intermediary concerned and a report to that effect shall be uploaded on its website,” the rules have specified, saying any appeal be settled within 30 days.

The social media intermediary industry had argued for a self-regulatory body for the purpose but it was in vain.

What the new rules say

• Each grievance appellate committee shall consist of a chairperson and two full-time members appointed by the central government, of which one shall be a member ex-officio and two shall be independent members.
• Any person aggrieved by a decision of the Grievance Officer (of the company) may prefer an appeal to the Grievance Appellate Committee within a period of 30 from the date of receipt of communication from the Grievance Officer.
• The dispute-resolution mechanism will be entirely online: from the filing of the appeal to the decision thereof to be conducted in digital mode.
• While dealing with the appeal if the Grievance Appellate Committee feels necessary, it may seek assistance from any person having requisite qualifications, experience and expertise in the subject matter.
• The new rules are called the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022, and come into force immediately.

What social media companies need to do

• The new rules say the social media intermediaries through their grievance officers must acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve such a complaint within a period of 15 days from the date of its receipt.
• If the complaint pertains to six specific categories, it shall be acted upon as expeditiously as possible and shall be resolved within 72 hours of such reporting, the rules say.
• These six categories of information are of the nature of:
• obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another’s privacy including bodily privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, racially or ethnically objectionable, relating or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion or caste with the intent to incite violence;

• is harmful to children;
• deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature;
• impersonates another person;
• threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence, or prevents investigation of any offence, or is insulting other nation;
• contains software virus or any other computer code, file or program designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource

Other requirements

• A social media intermediary also shall prominently publish on its website, mobile-based application or both, as the case may be, the rules and regulations, privacy policy and user agreement in English or any language specified in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution for access or usage of its computer resource by any person in the language of his choice and ensure compliance of the same.

“…The intermediary shall make reasonable efforts to cause the user of its computer resource not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right, infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights; and violates any law for the time being in force; (besides the above-mentioned six categories),” the rules say.

• The intermediary shall take all reasonable measures to ensure accessibility of its services to users along with a reasonable expectation of due diligence, privacy and transparency, the rules add. The note says appropriate safeguards may be developed by the intermediary to avoid any misuse by users.