Digital Diligence: Centre To Set Up Appellate Panels In 3 Months To Settle Social Media Users' Resentments

The central government on October 28 made changes to the Information & Technology rules to pave the way for the setting up of grievance appellate panels, which would resolve problems that users might have against the manner social media outlets initially handled their complaints concerning content and other cases.

These committees mentioned above are set to review content moderation conclusions by social media platforms like Twitter, Meta, etc. The 'Grievance Appellate Committees' is set to be put together within three months, as per a gazette notification on October 28.

Centre To Govern Social Media!

Incidentally, this move comes right at the time when the business magnate and CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc and SpaceX, Elon Musk, completed his much-anticipated $44-billion takeover of Twitter, which puts the richest man on the planet at the top of one of the most influential social media platforms.

The changes in IT rules have been in the pipeline for months, though, since users highlighted examples of digital platforms acting arbitrarily. This move would also arm the users with a grievance appeal mechanism in the shape of appellate panels that will look into complaints filed by people against decisions of grievance officers of social media applications.

What's The Statement?

"The central government shall, by notification, establish one or more grievance appellate committees within three months from the date of commencement of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022," the notification was quoted as saying a report in The Print.

Each appellate grievance committee would have a chairperson and two other whole-time members appointed by the Centre. One of them will be a member ex-officio, and the other two will be independent members.

The appellate grievance committee will be responsible for dealing with an appeal "expeditiously" and endeavouring to settle the appeal within thirty calendar days from the day of receipt of the request.

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