As per industry sources, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) plans to conduct quarterly reviews and compliance audits of social media companies. The assessment is expected to be conducted by the MeitY from September 2022. Through this exercise, MeitY will check compliance on various parameters including the number of grievances received by intermediaries, the number of complaints received and resolved by the resident chief compliance officer, among others.
To this end, the government has proposed to set up an appellate panel which will have power to overrule decisions taken by social media companies with respect to any grievance. Meanwhile, the public consultation process with respect to the proposed rule has been wrapped up by the ministry.
At present, social media platforms are required to disclose their compliance with IT rules 2021 every month where they disclose action taken by them in response to various grievances but the ministry does not conduct any audit of compliance of the various orders passed under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act or otherwise.
