Twitter appoints American Jeremy Kessel as new grievance officer for India

Twitter has appointed its global legal policy director as the new grievance officer for users in India, reports said on Monday, a day after the interim resident grievance officer quit from the post. Dharmendra Chatur, who was recently appointed to the post, has quit amid Twitter’s ongoing tussle with the government.

However, California-based Jeremy Kessel's appointment could add to the row with the central government as the new digital rules call for an Indian resident as the grievance officer. Under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, social media intermediaries have to appoint an official to address complaints from Indian subscribers.

On May 31, Twitter brought Chatur as the grievance officer for India. Before this, he was a partner at a law firm that represented Twitter.

Kessel's appointment is coming at a time when the micro-blogging company is engaged in a rift with the central government over the new IT rules, which came into effect on May 23. The government has slammed Twitter for deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country’s new guidelines that mandate appointments of chief compliance officer, nodal officer and grievance officer by social media platforms with over 500 million users.

Recently, the US giant also lost its intermediary status in India making the company liable for any unlawful user-generated content.