The Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC)

Why in news?

• The Centre established three Grievance Appellate Committees based on the recently amended Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 ( or IT Rules 2021).
• As per the notification, three Grievance Appellate Committees have been constituted with three members each.

Background:

• Under the IT Rules >> social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are mandated to appoint India-based resident grievance officers as part of their due diligence as ‘intermediaries’ who enjoy legal immunity from third-party content on their platform.
• These officers are responsible for overseeing the grievance redressal mechanism of complaints from the people who use their services.
• This means that if a user has an issue with an account or a piece of content on a social media platform, they can complain about it to the company’s grievance officer who will have to act and dispose of that complaint within 15 days.

Need for GAC:

• The need for GAC was created due to large numbers of grievances being left unaddressed or unsatisfactorily addressed by Internet Intermediaries.
• If a user is not satisfied with the content moderation decision taken by a company’s grievance officer >>  they can appeal that decision before the GAC.
• Hence GAC is an alternative to a user to file an appeal against the decision of the Grievance Officer rather than directly going to the court of law.

Time bound response:

• The Committee will endeavour to address the user’s appeal within a period of 30 days.

Add ons:

• The GAC will be a virtual Digital platform that will operate only online and digitally - wherein the entire appeal process, from filing of appeal to the decision thereof, shall be conducted digitally.

PRACTICE QUESTION:

Consider the following statements regarding Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC)

1.They are appointed by social media intermediaries

2. The entire appeal process of GAC, from filing of appeal to the decision thereof, shall be conducted digitally

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer