Under the new IT rules, intermediary companies were asked to appoint officers in India by May 26.
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Social media giants like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube will have to appoint statutory officers under the new IT rules. This officer will not be appointed as part of the Indian subsidiary but on the payroll of the company’s global headquarters.
This has been done because the content handling, processing and moderation of these companies is a domain headquartered in the US, while their subsidiaries such as India etc. are primarily tasked with advertising, marketing and promotional activities. That’s why the government has taken this decision. This officer must be a resident of India, and must have a local postal address. According to a Times of India report, a source told, “They should be in the local time zone, and should not operate from any foreign location, including the US.”
The new rules have ordered companies to appoint three statutory officers in India to coordinate content-related activities and liaise with the government and their users. While the Chief Compliance Officer will be responsible for ensuring compliance with the IT Act and rules, the work of the Nodal Liaison Officer will be to ensure round-the-clock coordination with law-enforcement agencies. Apart from this the job of the Grievance Officer would be to handle the complaints of the users around the content, and that person would be the local face of the Headquarters in India along with the public at large.
Under the new IT rules, intermediary companies were asked to appoint officers in India by May 26. Where there were some problems earlier, but later all social media companies have accepted it. However, Twitter has just appointed contract officers and is looking for permanent employees.
The government believes that having a representative headquartered in India will help in better coordination on content-related queries and demands, as there have been several cases of “extreme delays” due to lack of direct coordination with the team in charge of content earlier. According to the TOI report, Google and YouTube have appointed three executives under the new IT rules and Twitter declined to comment on it. Along with this, information about Facebook and its group companies like WhatsApp and Instagram has not been received yet.
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