Sunday, 13 Oct, 2024
In compliance with Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, sites like Whataspp, Facebook, Twitter etc. are required to publish a monthly compliance report
Recently, Twitter filed a petition in Karnataka High Court challenging government’s order to remove content on its platform under the new IT laws, saying it is an abuse of power by officials. Late last month, Twitter was warned by the IT ministry of criminal proceedings if it did not comply with some orders.
According to its monthly compliance report released by the social media giant, 43,656 handles were banned for tweeting content related to child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity, while 2,870 accounts were suspended for promoting terrorism.
In compliance with Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, sites like Whataspp, Facebook, Twitter etc. are required to publish a monthly compliance report which includes the details of complaints from users via the India grievance mechanism and action taken on them.
According to the data, the platform received 1,698 complaints in India with over 70 percent of them amounting to abuse/harassment. Over 100 complaints were received for hateful conduct. Others included misinformation and manipulated media (36), sensitive adult content (28) and impersonation (25). Accordingly, took action against 1,621 uniform resource locators (URLs) during the period. In addition, Twitter also processed 115 grievances which appealed account suspensions. No account suspensions were revoked, the report said.
Another social networking site Facebook also revealed that they had “actioned" around 17.5 million pieces of content in India during May across 13 different violation categories. A total of 3.7 million pieces were actioned for violent and graphic content, 2.6 million were in the category of adult nudity and sexual activity, while 1 million were in the category of promoting terrorism. Bullying and harassment (2.94 lakh), suicide and self-injury (4.82 lakh), dangerous organisations and individuals - organised hatred (4,300) accounted for the rest.
Talking about Whatsapp, it disclosed that it banned over 19 lakh fraudulent accounts in India during the month of May. The messaging app received 528 complaints of grievances from around the nation, and 24 accounts were “actioned", the report stated. Whatsapp banned 1.66 Mn Indian accounts in April this year and more than 1.8 Mn accounts in March.
For Instagram, in May, 13,869 reports were received through the Indian grievance mechanism, and the platform responded to 100 per cent of the reports. Of these incoming reports, it provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 4,693 cases.
