Govt to appoint 3-member GAC on top of grievance mechanism of middlemen

Amending the Arbitration Guidelines and the Digital Media Ethics Code issued last year, the government has given complainants 30 days to appeal the decision made by the Grievance Officer, and 30 days for the Appellate Committee consisting of three members to be appointed. To settle the matter by the Centre.

“The Grievances Appellate Committee (GAC) has been introduced to hear the appeals against the decisions of the Grievance Officer appointed by the arbitrator,” Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnav said in a Twitter post on Friday, specifying the amendments.

“Empowering Users. The Privacy Policy and the User Agreement of the arbitrator will be made available in eight Schedule Indian languages.”

The amendments specify that intermediaries must not display, publish or share information or material that is “obscene, obscene, pedophilic, offensive to another’s privacy, including complaints of physical privacy, which is abusive on the basis of gender.” or may be racially or ethnically objectionable, ranging from harassment, relating to or encouraging money laundering or gambling, or promoting enmity between different groups on the basis of religion or race with the intention of inciting violence.”

Content that is intentionally misleading, impersonates another, belongs to someone else, is harmful to children, infringes on patents or copyrights, threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, contains viruses or is in violation of any law, cannot be displayed or shared by the arbitrator.

in the case of a request to remove such material or links to material that directly affects users such as nudity or material that is harmful to children or which is a threat to public order, incites the commission of any cognizable offence, or Prevents investigation of any crime or insults another nation, the intermediary must acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 72 hours, and develop safeguards to avoid misuse by users. Will be This has been done to prevent quick spread of the material.

For other complaints, the mediator can resolve the complaint within 15 days.

The amendments state that the arbitrator must comply with the sovereign laws of India and respect the citizens’ right to freedom of speech and expression, the right to equal protection of the laws of India and the right to protection of life and personal liberty, as that is specified in Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution.

The revised guidelines state that due diligence, reasonable expectation of confidentiality and transparency, as well as appropriate measures should be taken to ensure access to its services for users.

The amendments state that every order passed by the Grievance Appeal Committee or GAC will be complied with by the concerned arbitrator and a report will have to be uploaded on its website.

The changes in the guidelines have been made to address user complaints, which continue to come to the fore despite middlemen or social media platforms having their own redressal mechanism. Intermediaries have also been advocating for self-regulation of the grievance appellate framework, but the government decided to step in and circulated the draft rules in June, which proposed setting up of grievance appellate committees by the government.

The changed guidelines allow the Grievance Appeals Committee to seek assistance from any person having the requisite qualifications, experience and expertise in the subject while dealing with the appeal.