Facebook, Instagram purge about 22 million content pieces

Meta, the newly-formed parent company of Facebook and its family of apps, on Wednesday said that it has removed more than 21.8 million pieces of content in October on Facebook and Instagram in India, as it faces intense scrutiny over user data privacy.

The social network giant acted on over 18.8 million pieces of content across 13 policies for Facebook and over 3.07 million pieces of content across 12 policies for Instagram from October 1-31, in compliance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the company said in its monthly report.

In accordance with the IT Rules, we've published our fifth monthly compliance report for the period for 31 days - 01 October to 31 October," a Meta spokesperson, said in a statement.

"This report will contain details of the content that we have removed proactively using our automated tools and details of user complaints received and action taken," it added.

In October, Facebook received 686 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism, and responded to all of those reports. Of these, the company provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 497 cases.

The reports received were majorly for fake profile (170) and account hacked (157).

Instagram, in October, received 652 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism, and responded to all. Of these, the photo-sharing app provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 420 cases.

The social network took action on 2.3 million pieces of content related to adult nudity and sexual activity, and 87,000 in pieces of content in the bullying and harassment category in the country.

Meta also took action on 172,400 pieces of content related to hate speech in India.

"We use a combination of Artificial Intelligence, reports from our community and review by our teams to identify and review content against our policies," said the Meta spokesperson.

All tech giants have been directed to produce monthly compliance reports under the new IT rules 2021.