The new IT rules have come into effect, binding the major social media intermediaries with a host of regulations and guidelines. Google has agreed to comply with them, and in accordance with the Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, it released its maiden monthly transparency report today, detailing complaints received from users in India and the actions taken across Google’s platforms.
According to the report, Google received no less than 27,762 complaints from individual users this April over alleged violation of local laws or personal rights, resulting in the removal of 59,350 pieces of content. According to Google, there will be a two-month lag for reporting to allow sufficient time for data processing and validation.
96.2% of the complaints were related to Copyright infringement, followed by Trademark (1.3%), Defamation (1.0%) and Other Legal (1.0%). Other areas included Counterfeit (0.4%) and Circumvention (0.1%).
Future reports will include data on removals as a result of automated detection, as well as data relating to impersonation and graphic sexual content complaints received after May 25, 2021.
Alphabet’s Google is among the first companies to actually release the transparency report ever since it agreed to comply with the new IT rules, whose provisions include the publishing of periodic compliance reports every month.
Facebook is due to submit an interim report on July 2, providing information on the number of content it removed proactively between May 15-June 15. The final report, including data related to WhatsApp, will be published on July 15.
According to a Google spokesperson, the company had a long history of providing transparency into the different types of requests it receives from around the world, and how it responds. All of the requests have been tracked and included in the company’s existing Transparency Report since 2010.
Since 2010, the company has been publishing its Transparency Report, providing details on government requests for content removals on a biannual basis. The company also reports on YouTube content removals on a quarterly basis.
“These complaints relate to third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or personal rights on Google’s SSMI platforms. This data also includes individual user complaints accompanied by a court order,” the report said.
“We evaluate content reported to us under our community guidelines, content policies and/or legal policies. Based on this review, removal action may be taken on one of the request reasons…” the report said. The report explained that each unique URL in a specific complaint is considered an individual “item” and that a single complaint may specify multiple items that potentially relate to the same or different pieces of content.
