Google removes 93,067 pieces of bad content in India in February

NEW DELHI: Google said it removed 93,067 pieces of bad content based on user complaints in February this year — a decrease from 104,285 pieces of bad content the tech giant removed in January.

In its monthly report in compliance with the new India IT Rules 2021, the tech giant said it received 30,065 complaints from users in India in February (from 33,995 in January).

These complaints were related to third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or personal rights on various Google platforms.

“The complaints consist of various categories. Some requests may allege infringement of intellectual property rights, while others claim violation of local laws prohibiting types of content on grounds such as defamation,” Google said in a statement.

The 93,067 pieces of content were removed under various categories like Copyright, Trademark, Court Order, Graphic Sexual Content, Circumvention, and others.

Google said that it also removed 338,938 pieces of content as part of automated detection in the above-mentioned period.

In January, it had removed 401,374 pieces of content as part of automated detection.

“In addition to reports from our users, we invest heavily in fighting harmful content online and use technology to detect and remove it from our platforms,” it said in its monthly compliance report.

“This includes using automated detection processes for some of our products to prevent the dissemination of harmful content such as child sexual abuse material and violent extremist content,” it added.

In accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules), Google, along with other social media platforms, is mandated to publish monthly transparency reports with details of complaints received from users in India and the actions taken, as well as removal actions taken as a result of automated detection.

Under the new IT rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms — with more than 5 million users — have to publish monthly compliance reports.

“We evaluate content reported to us under our Community Guidelines, content policies, and/or legal policies,” said Google.

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