Appellate panel on social media content proposed

Draft comes amid Centre’s stand-off with social media platforms over content moderation, takedown

The government has proposed a new panel that will have the power to overturn the decisions related to content moderation/takedown of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, following appeals by users.

As per the draft of the proposed amendments to the IT Rules, 2021, the Central government will constitute one or more ‘Grievance Appellate Committees’ or appellate committees to deal with appeals by users against the decision of the Grievance Officer appointed by the social media intermediary.

The draft was put up on the website of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), seeking comments and suggestions of stakeholders till June 22, 2022. However, it was not reflecting on the website from Thursday afternoon onwards. While a senior government official confirmed that the proposed draft has not been withdrawn and may be a ‘technical glitch’, the draft was not available on the Ministry’s website till the time of going to press.

The proposal comes on the back of multiple stand-offs between the government and the social media platforms over content moderation and takedown. Last year, for example, microblogging site Twitter had blocked several accounts, including that of news websites, actors, political workers and bloggers, posting messages in support of the farmers’ agitation following government orders. The U.S.-headquartered firm later said it had only “withheld a portion of the accounts” identified by the MeitY within India, and was also served with a non-compliance notice following restoration of content that it believed was consistent with Indian law.

In another instance, the government had asked Twitter to remove the ‘manipulated media’ tag from certain tweets from verified accounts of many BJP leaders, including Sambit Patra. However, these were not removed by Twitter. In these tweets, the BJP leaders shared certain documents alleging use of a toolkit by the Congress to hurt Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image during the second wave of COVID-19.

The proposed amendments state that any person aggrieved by an order of the Grievance Officer appointed by a social media network may appeal to the Grievance Appellate Committee within 30 days of receipt of communication from the Grievance Officer.

“The Grievance Appellate Committee shall deal with such appeal expeditiously and shall make an endeavour to dispose of the appeal finally within 30 calendar days from the date of receipt of the appeal,” it states.