Facebook actioned 30 million content pieces during May 15-Jun 15

Facebook “actioned” over 30 million content pieces across 10 violation categories during May 15-June 15 in the country; the social media giant said in its maiden monthly compliance report as mandated by the IT rules.

Instagram took action against about two million pieces across nine categories during the same period.

Under the new IT rules, large digital platforms (with over 5 million users) will have to publish periodic compliance reports every month; mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken thereon.

The report is to also include 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.

While Facebook actioned over 30 million content pieces across multiple categories during May 15-June 15, Instagram took action against about 2 million pieces.

A Facebook spokesperson said over the years, Facebook has consistently invested in technology, people and processes to further its agenda of keeping users safe and secure online and enabling them to express themselves freely on its platform.

“We use a combination of artificial intelligence; reports from our community and review by our teams to identify and review content against our policies. We’ll continue to add more information; and build on these efforts towards transparency as we evolve this report,” the spokesperson said in a statement to PTI.

Facebook said its next report will be published on July 15, containing details of user complaints received and action taken.

“We expect to publish subsequent editions of the report with a lag of 30-45 days after the reporting period; to allow sufficient time for data collection and validation. We will continue to bring more transparency to our work; and include more information about our efforts in future reports,” it added.

Other categories under which content was actioned include bullying and harassment (118,000); suicide and self-injury (589,000); dangerous organisations and individuals: terrorist propaganda (106,000) and dangerous organisations and Individuals: organised hate (75,000).

‘Actioned’ content refers to the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) where action has been taken for violation of standards. Taking action could include removing a piece of content from Facebook or Instagram or covering photos or videos that may be disturbing to some audiences with a warning.

The proactive rate, which indicates the percentage of all content or accounts acted; on which Facebook found and flagged using technology before users reported them; in most of these cases ranged between 96.4-99.9 per cent.