IT rules mandate: Facebook, Instagram take down 3.2 crore posts over unlawful content in a month
There was, however, no data given on censures over government orders, or requests by political parties.
The companies released the data in line with the new IT Rules (Google’s YouTube and Koo have already come out with their numbers), and said that these numbers are largely based on the content flagged off by their algorithms which scout for unlawful content.
Later this month, the companies would also release a report where they will give out figures where content was taken down mainly after a complaint by users. Figures for the group’s messaging platform WhatsApp would also be released at that time.
The majority of content, or 3 crore posts, were removed by Facebook, while for Instagram, the take-down number was around 20 lakh.
Interestingly, spam was the biggest category with as many as 2.5 crore posts removed from Facebook. The second-highest was ‘violent and graphic content’ which saw removal of 25 lakh posts, while ‘adult nudity and sexual activity’ had 18 lakh posts taken down.
Other categories where Facebook removed content voluntarily were ‘suicide and self-injury’ (5.9 lakh), ‘hate speech’ (3.1 lakh); ‘bullying and harassment’ (1.18 lakh); ‘dangerous organisations and individuals’ (1.8 lakh); and ‘regulated goods’ – drugs and firearms (9,700).
For Instagram, which has relatively young users, suicide and self-injury saw maximum take-downs at 7 lakh, followed by violent and graphic content which saw removal of 6.7 lakh posts, and adult nudity and sexual activity (4.9 lakh posts).
While the top social-media organisations have started giving out their monthly reports specifically tailored for India, Twitter – that has been embroiled in a massive confrontation with the IT Ministry over the new IT Rules – is yet to give a timeline.
Even though government officials sound confident that the American micro-blogging giant would give out its report on various parameters soon, there is no word as yet from the company on this.
The government has mandated a host of regulatory filings on the social-media companies as part of the new IT Rules which primarily aim at empowering the users and helping them prevent abuse and misuse on the platforms.
