In a sensational development, Twitter India’s interim resident grievance officer Dharmendra Chatur has resigned from his post just days after his appointment. The latest development came amidst an ongoing row involving the social media giant and the Centre’s Narendra Modi government.
Though Twitter has not formally commented on the reported resignation of Chatur, the latter’s name has been removed as the resident grievance officer from the microblogging site’s website.
Twitter has been at loggerheads with the Indian government over compliance with the new Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code. The Indian government had recently served one last notice to Twitter asking the platform to comply with the new IT rules. The social media platform later appointed Chatur as the interim grievance officer as it sought more time for compliance.
Chatur was a partner at a law firm that represented Twitter and his appointment as the interim grievance officer did not go down well with the government, which refused to approve the appointment of an outsider for the statutory post.
Last week, India’s IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, took to Twitter to lash out at Twitter accusing the platform of violating ‘Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021.’ This was after Prasad said that Twitter had locked his locked for an hour for an alleged copyright violation.
The union minister had taken taken to Twitter to inform about the action taken by the microblogging site. He had gone on to write, “Twitter’s actions were in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where they failed to provide me any prior notice before denying me access to my own account.”
Also Read: Twitter denied access to my account: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor too had alleged that his account was also locked for the same violation. He had tweeted, “As Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, I can state that we will be seeking an explanation from @TwitterIndia for the locking of @rsprasad’s & my accounts & the rules & procedures they follow while operating in India.”
The central government was recently also left seething after Twitter marked some of the tweets posted by BJP leaders as ‘manipulated media.’
The Uttar Pradesh Police had recently named Twitter an accused after several journalists were booked for sharing alleged fake news about the attack on an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad. The Karnataka High Court on Thursday had restrained the Uttar Pradesh Police from arresting Twitter India head, Manish Maheshwari, in that case.
