Twitter and Indian government have been at odds for quite some time now, be it the farmers protest earlier this year, or the issue with the Congress toolkit. However, at the end of the day, the government has always come out victorious. This time is no different, and after much pushback, Twitter India has appointed interim Chief Compliance Officer, as directed by the new social media guidelines.
If you need a refresher, Indian government announced new guidelines for social media companies and OTT platforms earlier this year, as part of which companies like Facebook and Twitter had to appoint chief compliance officer, nodal officer and grievance officer in the country. This was done to ensure that these companies are held responsible for the content that’s being published on their platform, among other things.
The rules went as far as to state that platforms like WhatsApp will have to provide information about the first originator of a message, should the government ask for it.
While the entire industry pushed back against these laws, Twitter’s revolt was much vigorous than others. Companies like Facebook and Google complied with the new laws just before the deadline, without presenting much hesitance. However, Twitter was not only late to the party, it also said that it was worried about the new laws, and needed more time to come in accordance with them.
This is why it took so long for the platform to appoint a Chief Compliance Officer. In contrast, Facebook had hired someone for the role earlier this month. Twitter said that the hiring process is taking so long because of the COVID 19 situation, even though it had posted openings for chief compliance officer, nodal officer and grievance officer on LinkedIn.
Finally, now that the Chief compliance officer has been hired, he will be responsible for the content being posted on Twitter, a job that could crush any common man. Nonetheless, someone brave enough have stepped up, despite Twitter’s earlier concerns with the laws, which it deemed undemocratic.
It looks like Twitter has stopped “beating around the bush” just like the government asked it to.
