FB IN COMPLIANCE REPORT: REMOVED 30MN ITEMS

NEW DELHI: Facebook removed a little over 30 million pieces of content — posts, profiles pages — between May 15 and June 15 in India, the company said in a first action-taken disclosure that has been made mandatory by the country’s new Information Technology rules.

The links taken down related to content that was violent and graphic, contained adult nudity and sexual activity, and suicide and self-injury.

The report released on Friday is an interim disclosure and the company said it will publish details on July 15.

Facebook-owned Instagram said it took action on two million links across nine categories in the same period. Another Facebook company, Whatsapp, has challenged the IT rules for its traceability clause.

“Facebook’s India-specific numbers are more detailed than offered to other countries,” a person familiar with the matter said, adding, “The list of categories is not exhaustive.”

According to the social media firm’s last quarter transparency report, from January 2021 to March 2021, it actioned 31.8 million URLS for adult nudity, while in India the number stood at 1.8 million for the month.

In terms of graphic and violent content, the company proactively took down 34.3 million posts, pages and profiles, with the India’s number for May 15 to June 15 was 2.5 million.

The other actioned content includes spam, 25 million counts of which were removed, dangerous organisations and individuals: Organised Hate wherein 75,000 URLS were taken down.