Have appointed interim Chief Compliance Officer, will make other key appointments soon: Twitter tells Delhi High Court

NEW DELHI: Twitter Inc on Thursday informed the Delhi High Court that it has appointed an interim Chief Compliance Officer for India and will make other key appointments soon. The micro-blogging firm further said that it needed eight weeks' time to appoint a grievance officer in India in compliance with the new IT rules.

Twitter tells Delhi HC that it'll, in good faith, make an offer of employment to a qualified candidate to fill Chief Compliance Officer position within 8 weeks. Twitter tells HC that it has appointed a resident of India as its interim Chief Compliance Officer effective 6th July. pic.twitter.com/ac7MrMMzzg — ANI (@ANI) July 8, 2021

Twitter India also said that it will soon designate two other executives for the time being to comply with the country`s new IT rules.

The micro-blogging platform said all this in a court filing on Thursday. "Twitter has posted job openings for all three positions, will try to make an offer of employment within 8 weeks,'' the company said in the court filing.

The Delhi High Court had last week slammed the micro-blogging platform for inordinate delay in making key appointments in compliance with the country’s new digital laws.

Expressing its displeasure over Twitter delaying the appointment of grievance redressal officer, Justice Rekha Palli of Delhi High Court said, "How long does your (Twitter's) process take? If Twitter thinks it can take as long as it wants in our country, I'll not allow that."

The high court clearly stated that ''Twitter is in defiance of the digital law'' for not appointing the grievance redressal officer as necessitated under new IT Rules. It also directed Twitter to explain why no new India-based grievance officer had been appointed after the resignation of Dharmendra Chatur on June 21.

As of now, Twitter Inc does not enjoy liability protection against user-generated content in India as the US micro-blogging giant has failed to comply with new IT rules, the government has recently said in a court filing.

The IT Ministry had told the Delhi High Court that Twitter`s non-compliance amounted to a breach of the provisions of the IT Act, causing the U.S. firm to lose its immunity, according to the filing dated July 5.

Former Union Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had slammed Twitter for deliberately defying the law and said all social media firms must abide by the new rules.

In recent weeks, as acrimony grew between New Delhi and Twitter, at least five cases were filed against the company or its officials, including some related to child pornography and a controversial map of India on its career page. Twitter also landed in legal trouble over child pornographic content on its platform.