Facebook and Instagram: Why Meta removed 27 million posts in India?

Facebook and Instagram removed 2.7 crore posts in India in July 2022. Why these posts were deleted? What do netizens feel about meta? Read this article to know everything

Though Facebook has been earlier accused of having biased content moderation policies, the removal of 27 million posts on Facebook and Instagram in India has sparked a controversy on social media. 

Also read | Technology can help solve India's biggest challenges: Microsoft president

According to the PTI report, citing Meta's monthly report, the company took down 17.3 million spam posts, 2.7 million pornographic or nude posts, 2.3 million violent and graphic posts and a lot more irrelevant content that was essential to be deleted.

Meta (formerly Facebook) also shared the details of actions taken on complaints under the grievance redressal mechanism, saying it had responded to 100 per cent of user reports.  They also identified around 998,000 "Dangerous Organizations and individuals: Terrorism' related content and eventually took action against 99.8 percent of the identified posts.

What does Meta's monthly report say?

Under the IT Rules 2021(Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), Meta revealed that the firm had removed 25 million posts on Facebook and 2 million posts on Instagram in July 2022. 

The latest report also implies that the company removed content proactively at detection rates of 99.9 to 99.4 percent, which means most spam, x-rated content and graphically violent content have been deleted or removed by Facebook.

Why did Facebook and Instagram remove 27 million posts in India?

Meta has claimed that it removed over 900,000 posts related to suicide and self-injury, over 22,000 instances of hate speech and 370,000 posts related to sexual content. The proactive detection rates for these kinds of content stood at 99.5 per cent, 77.4 per cent, and 96 per cent, respectively. 

Under the IT Rules, Meta's social media platforms are expected to respond to users' complaints via a grievance redressal mechanism. The company said that it received 626 and 1,033 reports from users on Facebook and Instagram respectively, and claims that it responded to all user reports. 

The company resolved the issues for 603 reports by providing relevant tools and acted on 9 out of 23 complaints based on the company's policies.

"Between 1st and 31st July, we received 626 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism, and we responded to 100 percent of these 626 reports. Of these incoming reports, we provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 603 cases.” stated the Meta report.

How does social media react to Meta?

"Hey Facebook, mind explaining to me how blatantly-racist comments don't violate your precious Community Standards?" tweeted Matthew Johnson.

"Making easier by SUSPENDING my account for zero reasons. I’m awaiting a response to why- but so far it’s silent"

"The Intercept report shows Meta has ‘double standards’ in moderating Ukraine and Palestine content" tweeted Redress Information and analysis.

(Written by Zuhair Zaidi)