Social media companies’ statutory officers must be on HQ roll

NEW DELHI: Social media giants such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube will need to appoint statutory officers — in line with the new IT rules — on the payroll of the global headquarters, and not hire them as part of the Indian subsidiaries.

This has been prescribed as content handling, processing and moderation is a domain of the headquarters in the US for these companies, while their subsidiaries — such as in India — are mainly tasked with advertising, marketing and promotional activities. The officers also need to be residents of India, and have to have a local postal address. “They need to be in the local time zone, and not operate from any overseas location, including the US,” sources told TOI.