Govt to set up social media grievance appellate committees within 3 months

The committees will be established with the aim of providing users of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter with an alternative dispute resolution method

The government is planning to establish centrally appointed Grievance Appellate Committees (GACs) within a period of three months of the notice of amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Rules of 2021 under the IT Act, reported The Economic Times.

The objective behind setting up these committees is to provide users of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter with an alternative dispute resolution method.

It is likely that notification of the final text of the proposed amendments to the IT Rules of 2021, which were initially made available for public consultation in June, will come within the next few days.

The final regulations also direct intermediaries to "respect all the rights guaranteed to the citizens under the Constitution, notably in Articles 14, 19 and 21" and set shorter deadlines of 24 hours for acting on sensitive content. Platforms are also given some exemption with regard to performing "due diligence" on user-generated content.

A three-person Grievance Appellate Committee will comprise a chairperson and two full-time members chosen by the central government, according to the requirements in the final draft. The three members will have one ex-officio member and two independent members.

Anybody who is unhappy with a decision of an intermediary will have a period of 30 days to file an appeal against the decision, according to the provisions of the draft.

Earlier, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had taken the decision to go ahead with its disputable proposal to appoint multiple GACs even though the industry had been lobbying for a self-regulatory body. According to the persons privy to the situation, the government believes that the platforms are slow to respond to user complaints.

Companies had objected to the creation of government-backed GACs, casting doubt on the independence of such forums and raising issues with free speech. The sector was asked by the government to develop a self-regulatory model, but that attempt was thwarted by a lack of agreement on a framework among the major platforms.