Complaint panels against online platforms set up: How will they work

The government said that the appellate platforms to deal with complaints against online platforms will become operational from March 1 onwards

New Delhi, Jan 28: The Centre notified the formation of three grievance appellate committees. These committees will be formed and users' could file their grievances against social media and other internet-based platforms.

The committees would take a decision to oversee and revoke content moderation related decisions taken by these platforms.

What the notification says:

The notification was issued late on Friday night. Each of these appellate committees will have a chairperson, two full time members from different governments entities and retired executives from the industry for a term of three years from the day they assume office.

The first panel will be chaired by the chief executive officer of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The whole time members of the panel appointed are retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Ashutosh Shukla, and Punjab National Bank's (PNB) former chief general manager and chief information officer Sunil Soni.

According to the notification, the second panel will be chaired by the joint secretary in charge of the Policy and Administration Division in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Sunil Kumar Kumar, Indian Navy's retired Commodore and Ravindra Sharma, former vice-president (consulting) of L&T Infotech have been appointed as the whole time members of this panel.

Kavita Bhatia, senior scientist at the Ministry of Electronics and IT will chair the third panel. Former traffic service officer of the Indian Railways Sanjay Goel, and former managing director and chief executive officer of IDBI Intech Krishnagiri Ragothamarao will be the whole term members of the third panel.

How these panels would operate:

In October 2022, the government had notified that it would start the process of selecting the GACs. The decision was taken amidst criticism from civil society activists, who had raised concerns about the involvement of the government in the process of appeals.

In case a user is not satisfied with the content moderation decision taken by a social company's grievance officer, they can appeal before the government appointed appeals committee, now proposed by the government.

The committees can seek the assistance of people who have expertise and experience in a subject matter while dealing with a users' appeals. The appellate committees will adopt and online dispute resolution mechanism where the entire appeal process right from filing to final decision will be done online. The social media companies would have to compile every order passed by the committee and report them on their website.

Those persons aggrieved by the decision of the grievance officer of a social media intermediary will be allowed to file an appeal to the appellate committee within a period 30 days. The appellate committees will have to resolve the appeal within a month from the receipt of the appeal.

The committee's online platform will become operational from March 1 2023, keeping in view the transition period that is required for the intermediaries as per their requests and technical requirement, the government also said.