60,000 pieces of content blocked, says Google report

A Google spokesperson told PTI that the company would “continue to publish more details as we refine our reporting process for India”. Google has been maintaining a transparency report, listing requests for take downs, complaints, and pieces of content removed, since 2010.

Google removed almost 60,000 pieces of content in April, the company said its first monthly transparency report, required by India’s new guidelines for social media companies and intermediaries. The guidelines mandate significant social media intermediaries (SSMIs) with over 5 million users such as YouTube (owned by Google) to disclose the number of complaints they have received and what action has been taken.

Google has sought two months to submit a more granular report with data on how the removal took place. (Reuters)

According to the report covering the period from April 1 to April 30, Google said it received 27,762 complaints. “The number reflects the total number of complaints received from individual users located in India via designated mechanisms during the one-month reporting period,” Google said in the report. “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.”

A Google spokesperson told PTI that the company would “continue to publish more details as we refine our reporting process for India”.

Google has been maintaining a transparency report, listing requests for take downs, complaints, and pieces of content removed, since 2010.

Of the complaints, 92% or 26,707, related to copyright infringement and the rest to the trademark (357 or 1.3%), defamation (275 or 1.0%), etc. Nearly 98.4% of the action taken was regarding copyright infringement (58,391 pieces of content were taken down as a result).

Google has sought two months to submit a more granular report with data on how the removal took place. “In future reports, data on removals as a result of automated detection, as well as data relating to impersonation and graphic sexual content complaints received post May 25, 2021, will be included,” the report said.

Facebook has said it will submit its interim report on July 2 with details of content removed between May 15 and June 15. A more detailed report will follow on July 15, which will also include details of complaints received by WhatsApp.