Government Appellate Panels for Social Media

What is the issue?

The Government’s plan to set up a panel that can overturn content moderation decisions made by social media platforms is problematic.

The idea to constitute appellate committees has been proposed as an amendment to the controversial IT Rules, 2021.
The Central Government shall constitute one or more Grievance Appellate Committees, which shall consist of a Chairperson and other members.
These committees will have the final word on any content moderation issue facing a social media platform when appealed by a social media user aggrieved by an order of the platform’s grievance officer.
However, the user has the right to seek judicial remedy at any time.

IT rules- Under the IT Rules, social media companies are mandated to appoint India-based resident grievance officers as ‘intermediaries’ who enjoy legal immunity from third-party content on their platform.
These officers are responsible for overseeing the grievance redressal mechanism of complaints from the people who use their services.
The company’s grievance officer will have to act and dispose of that complaint within 15 days.
Currently, the only remedial measure a user has if they feel a content decision by a company is unfair is to approach the courts.
Draft Amendment- In case a user is not satisfied with the content moderation decision taken by a company’s grievance officer, they can appeal that decision before the government appellate committee.
The committee will have 30 days to act on a user’s appeal.

Direct scrutiny of government- The proposal seeks to subject content on social media to the direct scrutiny of the Government by permitting users to appeal decisions of social media platforms to a Committee constituted by MeitY.
Curbs dissent- This mechanism will help to tighten the Government’s grip on messaging on social media intermediaries thus serving as a tool to curb the dissent.
Additional responsibilities on grievance officers- It suggests that if a user complains about content which is patently false, infringes copyright, threatens the integrity of India, etc., a grievance officer will have to expeditiously address it within 72 hours.
Privacy issues- Last year, WhatsApp filed a lawsuit against the rules which requires encrypted messaging platforms to trace the identity of the originator of a message as it poses privacy-risk to users.

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