What is the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC)?

About Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC):

• The GAC was one of the provisions in the recently amended Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
• GAC will look into user complaints regarding unsatisfactory grievance redressal by social media intermediaries.
• Three such bodies have been constituted of professionals from various fields.
• Each GAC will comprise three government-appointed, full-time members, including a chairperson.
• Any user aggrieved by a decision of a platform's Grievance Officer can appeal to the GAC within 30 days of the receipt of communication from the Grievance Officer.
• The Committee has to dispose of the appeals within 15 days of receiving them.
• GAC’s decisions will be binding on the intermediary.

GAC portal:

• The GAC will be a virtual Digital platform that will operate only online and digitally — wherein the entire appeal process, from the filing of the appeal to the decision thereof, shall be conducted digitally through the new portal https://gac.gov.in.
• The new portal lists out detailed FAQs for the convenience of users.
• The appellants can track the status of their appeal through the Appellant Login window.
• GAC will upload its order on the portal, and the appellant will receive notification of the same by SMS and email

 

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Q1) What are social media intermediaries?

Rule 2(1)(w) of the IT Rules 2021 define a “social media intermediary” as “an intermediary which primarily or solely enables online interaction between two or more users and allows them to create, upload, share, disseminate, modify or access information using its services.”

Source: Portal opened for complaints against decisions of social media platforms