'Big Step Towards Transparency': Law Min Praises Facebook, Google

The social media giant said that it had removed 3,11,000 pieces of hate-speech content between 15 May and 15 June.

Ravi Shankar Prasad (File Photo)

(Photo: IANS)

After several online platforms like Facebook, Google, Koo, Instagram published their compliance reports under the new IT rules, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday, 3 July, said it was a "big step towards transparency".

He took to Twitter to post several newspaper clippings and wrote, "Nice to see significant social media platforms like Google, Facebook and Instagram following the new IT Rules. First compliance report on voluntary removal of offensive posts published by them as per ITes is a big step towards transparency (sic)."

According to the new Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021 (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code), all digital platforms (having 5 million (or 50 lakh) user base) need to publish compliance reports every month. The rules came into effect on 26 May.

Facebook, Google Publish First Compliance Reports

Facebook, on Friday, 2 July, published the first edition of its monthly compliance report under the new rules and said that it had removed 3,11,000 pieces of hate-speech content and 1.8 million adult nudity and sexual activity content between 15 May and 15 June, news agency IANS reported.

It also removed 75,000 pieces of content under the 'Dangerous Organizations and Individuals: Organized Hate' policy, 1,06,000 pieces of content under the 'Dangerous Organizations and Individuals: Terrorist Propaganda' policy and 1,18,000 pieces of content related to bullying and harassment in India from its platform and Facebook-owned Instagram in the same period.

"We use a combination of Artificial Intelligence, reports from our community, and reviews by our teams to identify and evaluate content against our policies. We'll continue to add more information and build on these efforts towards transparency as we evolve this report," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement.

Not just Facebook, search engine Google, which was the first global tech company to release the report on 30 June, said it received a total of 27,762 complaints in April, majority of it being copyright claims, while the number of removals stood at 59,350.

Meanwhile, homegrown microblogging platform Koo moderated 54,000 posts, and removed 2,000 content in June 2021, according to a report by Moneycontrol.

(With inputs from IANS and Moneycontrol.)