In the month of April, WhatsApp, which has more than 500 million users in India, had banned a record over 74 lakh bad accounts…reports Asian Lite News
Meta received a record 16,995 complaints through the Indian grievance mechanism in the month of May, led by reports on inappropriate or abusive content (7,289 complaints), the social network has announced.
There were 6,787 complaints regarding bullying or harassment, 699 about fake profiles and 550 reports about account hacking, said the company, which has to publish the monthly compliance under the new IT Rules 2021.
“We responded to 100 per cent of these 16,995 reports. Of these incoming reports, we provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 2,325 cases,” said Meta.
These tools included pre-established channels to report content for specific violations, self-remediation flows where they can download their data, avenues to address account hacked issues etc.
Of the other 14,670 reports where specialised review was needed, Meta said it reviewed content as per its policies, and took action on 2,299 reports in total.
“The remaining 12,371 reports were reviewed but may not have been actioned,” said the company.
Between April 1-30, Meta had received 8,470 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism. Overall in the month of May, Meta removed more than 30 million pieces of content across Facebook and Instagram in India, as it faces security over user data privacy.
“We use a combination of Artificial Intelligence, reports from our community and review by our teams to identify and review content against our policies,” according to Meta.
All the social media giants have been directed to produce monthly compliance reports under the new IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Meanwhile, Meta-owned WhatsApp banned more than 65 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of May, in compliance with the new IT Rules 2021.
Between May 1 and May 31, 6,508,000 WhatsApp accounts were banned and 2,420,700 of these accounts were proactively banned, before any reports from users in the country.
In the month of April, WhatsApp, which has more than 500 million users in India, had banned a record over 74 lakh bad accounts.
The most popular messaging platform also received 3,912 grievance reports like “ban appeals” in May in the country, and the records “actioned” were 297.
“Accounts Actioned” denotes reports where WhatsApp took remedial action based on the report and taking action denotes either banning an account or a previously banned account being restored as a result.
“This user-safety report contains details of the user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp’s own preventive actions to combat abuse on our platform,” according to the company.
In a bid to empower millions of Indian social media users, the Centre recently launched the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) that will look into their concerns regarding content and other issues.
The newly-formed panel, a move to strengthen the country’s digital laws to tame the Big Tech companies, will look into appeals by users against decisions of social media platforms.
In a major push towards an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has notified some amendments aimed at protecting the rights of ‘Digital Nagriks’.