Tech companies' first reports to comply with India's IT Rules hailed as 'big step towards transparency'

 

By Emmanuel Legrand

Google India​ said that it has received 27,762​ complaints between April 1-30, 2021​, of which 96.2​% were related to copyright issues, 1.3​% to trademarks, 1​% defamation, 0.4​%​ r​elated to counterfeit issues and 0.4​% related to circumvention. ​Following these complaints, Google removed some 59,350​ URLs​.

  These figures were published in the various tech companies' first transparency reports ​issued ​in ​compliance with India's Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules​.

  "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 IT Rules is a big step towards transparency," wrote on Twitter Information and Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad (pictured, above).

Request to publish a compliance report each month

  ​The IT Rules, ​enforced on February 25, ​require "significant social media intermediaries" (SSMIs)​,​ with over 5 million users, to "publish periodic compliance report every month mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken thereon, and the number of specific communication links or parts of information that the intermediary has removed or disabled access to in pursuance of any proactive monitoring conducted by using automated tools or any other relevant information as may be specified.​"​

  Meanwhile, Facebook said it has taken action against 30 million pieces of content between May 15 and June 15, while sister company Instagram has taken down over two million items. Facebook "actioned" content included spam (25 million), violent and graphic content (2.5 million), adult nudity and sexual activity (1.8 million), and hate speech (311,000).

  For Instagram, content removed related to suicide and self-injury (699,000), violent and graphic content (668,000), adult nudity and sexual activity (490,000), bullying and harassment (108,000), hate speech (53,000), terrorist propaganda (5,800), and organised hate (6,200).

At risk of losing intermediary status

  India's social network Koo said it had moderated 54,235 content pieces, while 5,502 posts were reported by its users during June.

 
  News agency PTI explained that non-compliance with the IT rules could result in platforms "losing their intermediary status that provides them immunity from liabilities over any third-party data hosted by them. In other words, they could be liable for criminal action in case of complaints."

  "When we receive complaints from individual users regarding allegedly unlawful or harmful content, we review the complaint to determine if the content violates our community guidelines or content policies, or meets local legal requirements for removal," said the Google report.​

  Facebook told PTI that it uses "a combination of artificial intelligence, reports from our community and review by our teams to identify and review content against our policies."