The Delhi High Court was informed that the government would set up appellate panels to redress the grievances of users against social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook for hosting contentious content, following the recent amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021.
The submission was made before Justice Yashwant Varma following a batch of petitions concerning the suspension and deletion of accounts of several social media users. Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, representing the government, placed before the court a notification of October 28, 2022, in terms of which certain amended rules have come to be introduced in the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
According to a gazette notification issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), after rule 3 of the IT rules, rule 3A has been inserted which mentions “appeal to grievance appellate committee(s)”. As per the newly inserted rule, the government shall, by notification, establish one or more grievance appellate committees within three months from the date of commencement of the IT Amendment Rules, 2022.
