Amid tensions with the government, Twitter has appointed a Resident Grievance Officer, days after it designated a chief compliance officer, as it also released its first India Transparency Report to meet the new IT rules.
The US social media giant's website has listed Vinay Prakash as the new grievance officer, providing contact details and procedure for users to report potential violations of its rules and terms.
Twitter had previously appointed Dharmendra Chatur as its interim grievance officer for India after the new IT rules came into force on May 26. However, Chatur stepped down within weeks of taking over the key role.
California-based Jeremy Kessel was named as India's grievance redressal officer, on the platform's website - although the appointment did not meet the requirements of IT rules that clearly mandate key officers - grievance officer, chief compliance officer and nodal officer - to be resident in India.
Twitter's website on Sunday showed Vinay Prakash as the Resident Grievance Officer (RGO). Users can contact him using an email ID listed on the page.
"Twitter can be contacted in India at the following address: 4th Floor, The Estate, 121 Dickenson Road, Bangalore 560 042," the page further said.
Prakash's name appears along with Kessel, who is the Global Legal Policy Director, and is based in the US.
Twitter did not share additional details of the new resident grievance officer.
Twitter has also published its maiden compliance report. In its India Transparency Report: User Grievances and Proactive Monitoring July 2021 report, Twitter said it had received 94 grievances and "actioned" 133 URLs between May 26 and June 25, 2021.
Twitter said the majority of complaints received via Grievance Officer - India channel during the reporting period fell into categories including defamation (20), Abuse/Harassment (6), Sensitive Adult Content (4), Impersonation and privacy infringement (3 each), IP-related Infringement (1), and Misinformation/Synthetic and Manipulated Media (1).
In addition to this, Twitter processed 56 grievances which were appealing Twitter account suspensions.
