Amid tensions with the government, Twitter has appointed a Resident Grievance Officer, days after it designated a chief compliance officer, and also released its first India Transparency Report to meet the needs of the new IT Rules.

The US social media giant’s website has listed Vinay Prakash as the new grievance officer, providing contact details and procedure for users to report potential violations of its rules and terms, PTI reported from New Delhi.

Twitter had previously appointed Dharmendra Chatur as its interim grievance officer for India after the new IT Rules came into force on May 26. However, Chatur stepped down within weeks of taking over the key role.

California-based Jeremy Kessel was named as India’s grievance officer on the platform’s website, although the appointment did not meet the requirements of IT Rules that clearly mandate key officers — grievance officer, chief compliance officer and nodal officer — to be resident in India.

Twitter’s website on Sunday showed Vinay Prakash as the Resident Grievance Officer (RGO). Users can contact him using an email ID listed on the page.

“Twitter can be contacted in India at the following address: 4th Floor, The Estate, 121 Dickenson Road, Bangalore 560 042,” the page further said.

Prakash’s name appears along with Kessel, who is the Global Legal Policy Director, and is based in the US.

Twitter did not share additional details of the new resident grievance officer.

Twitter has also published its maiden compliance report. In its India Transparency Report: User Grievances and Proactive Monitoring July 2021 report, Twitter said it had received 94 grievances and “actioned” 133 URLs between May 26 and June 25, 2021.

Twitter said the majority of complaints received via Grievance Officer – India channel during the reporting period fell into categories including defamation (20), Abuse/Harassment (6), Sensitive Adult Content (4), Impersonation and privacy infringement (3 each), IP-related Infringement (1), and Misinformation/Synthetic and Manipulated Media (1).

In addition to this, Twitter processed 56 grievances, which were appealing Twitter account suspensions.

In a separate category, ”Proactive Monitoring Data”, Twitter said 18,385 accounts were suspended over the issue of Child Sexual Exploitation, Non-Consensual Nudity, and similar content, while 4,179 accounts were suspended for Promotion of Terrorism.

However, the ”Proactive Monitoring Data” — content proactively identified by employing internal tools and industry hash sharing initiatives — represents global actions taken, and not just actions related to content from India.

Twitter noted that going forward, it will publish this report on a monthly basis and that it will make improvements over time, based on feedback received from the government, or in accordance with internal changes that allow it to provide more granular data.

Under the new IT rules, large digital platforms (with over five million users) are required to publish periodic compliance reports every month, mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken.

Non-compliance with the IT rules would result in these platforms losing their intermediary status that provides them immunity from liabilities over any third-party data hosted by them.

The Indian government had confronted Twitter over deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the IT Rules, despite repeated reminders. Twitter — which has an estimated 17.5 million users in India — lost its legal shield as an intermediary in India, becoming liable for users posting any unlawful content.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, who has recently taken charge as Information Technology Minister, had on Thursday said all those who live and work in India will have to abide by the rules of the country.

On the same day, Twitter had informed the Delhi High Court that it has appointed an interim chief compliance officer (CCO), who is a resident of India, and that it will endeavour to fill the regular position within eight weeks as per the IT Rules.