Twitter interim grievance officer for India quits

The interim grievance officer for Twitter India has quit the position less than two weeks after being appointed by the microblogging platform as part of steps to comply with the country’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules for social media intermediaries.  

The company’s page for reporting violations has removed the name and contact details for Dharmendra Chatur, a partner at Bengaluru based law firm Poovayya & Co, as the interim grievance officer for India. The appointment was made on June 15 and the company had said it was in the process of appointing an interim chief compliance officer soon.  

The current page on grievance redressal now lists Jeremy Kessel, whose listed address is San Francisco, US, as the grievance officer for India.  

Twitter declined to comment on specific queries on the development. 

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had sought updates from all significant social media intermediaries on their compliance specific to the appointment of resident Indian grievance officer, nodal officer and chief compliance officer after the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules came into effect on May 26. 

Twitter was upbraided by the parliamentary committee on Information Technology during a meeting on June 18, asking why the platform should not be fined for failure to comply with the intermediary rules.  

Twitter has run into rough weather with the government over tagging a post by the ruling party’s spokesperson as manipulated media, which led to a notice being served by the special cell of Delhi Police in May. More recently, the Uttar Pradesh High Court had issued a notice against Twitter India managing director Manish Maheshwari in an investigation into the abuse of an elderly person captured on a viral video posted on Twitter.