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

Meta said that it took down over 17.8 million pieces of bad content across 13 policies for Facebook and over 4.8 million pieces of objectionable content across 12 policies for Instagram in India in January.

In January, Facebook received 29,548 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism, and said that it provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 21,060 cases.

These include pre-established channels to report content for specific violations, self-remediation flows where they can download their data, avenues to address account hacked issues, etc, Meta said in its monthly report in compliance with the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

“Of the other 8,488 reports where specialised review was needed, we analysed content as per our policies, and took action on 4,632 complaints in total. The remaining 3,856 grievances were reviewed but may not have been actioned,” Meta added.

On Instagram, the company received 19,311 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism.

“Of these, we provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 9,476 cases,” it said.

Of the other 9,835 reports where specialised review was needed, Meta analysed content and took action on 4,849 complaints in total.

The remaining 4,986 reports were reviewed but may not have been actioned.

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 measure the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) we take action for going against our standards. Taking action could include removing a piece of content from Facebook or Instagram or covering photos or videos that may be disturbing to some audiences with a warning,” said Meta.

In December 2023, Meta took down over 19.8 million pieces of content across 13 policies for Facebook and over 6.2 million pieces of content across 12 policies for Instagram.