Google removed 93,550 pieces of content in India in August, shows compliance report
Google received 35,191 complaints from users and removed 93,550 content based on those complaints in the month of August, the tech giant said in its monthly transparency report. In addition to reports from users, Google also removed 651,933 pieces of content in August as a result of automatic detection.
Google had received 36,934 complaints from users in July and removed 95,680 pieces of content based on those complaints. It removed 5,76,892 content in July as a result of automatic detection.
The US-based company made these disclosures as part of compliance with India’s IT regulations that came into force on May 26. In its latest report, Google said that in August 35,191 complaints were received from individual users based in India through the designated mechanism, and the number of removal actions that resulted in user complaints was 93,550.
These complaints pertain to third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or individual rights on Google’s Important Social Media Intermediaries (SSMI) platform, the report said.
“Some requests may allege infringement of intellectual property rights, while others claim violations of local laws restricting types of content on grounds such as defamation. When we receive complaints about content on our Platform, We assess them carefully.”
Content removal was carried out under several categories including copyright (92,750), trademark (721), counterfeit (32), fraud (19), court order (12), graphic sexual material (12) and other legal request (4) .
Google explained that a complaint can specify multiple items that are potentially related to similar or different content, and that each unique URL in a specific complaint is considered an individual “item” that is removed. .
Google said that in addition to what users report, the company invests heavily in fighting harmful content online and uses technology to detect and remove it from its platforms.
“This includes using automated identification processes for some of our products to prevent the spread of harmful material such as child sexual abuse material and violent extremist material.
“We balance privacy and user safety: promptly remove content that violates our Community Guidelines and Content Policies; restrict content (for example, age-restricted content that may not be suitable for all audiences) ); or leave it live when content that doesn’t violates our guidelines or policies.”
Google said that automatic detection enables it to act more quickly and accurately to enforce its guidelines and policies. It states that these removal actions may result in the removal of content or the termination of a bad actor’s access to the Google Service.
Under the new IT rules, large digital platforms – with more than 5 million users – will have to publish periodic compliance reports every month, detailing complaints received and action taken on them.
The report must also include the number of specific communication links or parts of information that the moderator has removed or disabled access to in pursuance of any active surveillance conducted using automated tools. Recently, Facebook and WhatsApp have also released their compliance reports for the month of August.
Facebook said it “actioned” about 31.7 million pieces of content across 10 consecutive infringement categories during August in the country, while its photo-sharing platform, Instagram, took action against about 2.2 million pieces across nine categories during the same period.
“Action” refers to the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) where action has been taken for violating the standards. Taking action may include removing a piece of content from Facebook or Instagram or covering up photos or videos that may disturb some viewers, with a warning.
Also, Facebook said it had received 904 user reports for Facebook through its Indian complaints mechanism between August 1 and 31. During the same time frame, Instagram had received 106 reports through the Indian complaints mechanism.
WhatsApp, in its report, said that it has banned over two million accounts in India, while the messaging platform received 420 complaints in the month of August.
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