New Delhi, July 8: Twitter will not enjoy legal protection if it does not follow India’s new information technology rules, which includes clauses like appointing compliance officers based in the country, the Delhi High Court told the social media giant on Thursday.
The remark came after Twitter told the court that it has appointed an interim chief compliance officer, who is a resident of India, two days ago but sought eight weeks to appoint a grievance officer in the country.
Twitter said an interim grievance officer will be appointed by July 11 and that an interim nodal contact person will be appointed in two weeks.
The social media giant also told the court that it will make its first compliance report public by July 11.
The court asked the social media company to file an affidavit declaring these details formally within two weeks and also asked all interim officers appointed by Twitter to file affidavits stating they would take responsibility for the duties tasked to them.
Stating that it still reserved the right to challenge the new rules, Twitter gave a time-frame two days after the court warned that it cannot take “as long as it wants” in this country to appoint an India-based officer for it to comply.
Appointments for three full-time positions – a chief compliance officer, a resident grievance officer and a nodal contact person – will be made in eight weeks, Twitter said, adding it is accepting applications for these roles for which job openings have been posted.
The IT rules, which became effective end-May, are aimed at regulating content on social media and making firms act more swiftly on legal requests for removal of posts and sharing details on the originators of messages.
The central government said in a court filing earlier this week that Twitter no longer has liability protection against user-generated content in India as the US microblogging giant has failed to comply with the new rules.
Courtesy:ndtv.com