Most of the action (98.4%) was taken against copyright infringement resulting in removal of 58,391 pieces of content.
According to Google’s first monthly transparency report, the firm removed 60,000 pieces of content in April.
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New IT Laws Require Monthly Reports
The firm has become the first major IT company in India to publish a compliance report.
It had to put out a transparency report for the period between April 1 to April 30 as the new national laws for social media companies and intermediaries made it mandatory.
As per the laws, significant social media intermediaries (SSMIs) with over 5 million users have to reveal the amount of complaints received and the action taken towards it.
Complaints And Topics Involved
Google has also disclosed that it received 27,762 complaints in April from individual Indian users.
Majority of the complaints, at 92%, were
- Regarding copyright infringement
- 1.3% were related to trademark
- 1% was related to defamation
The complaints are pertaining to third-party content that is alleged to have violated local laws or personal rights on the company’s platform.
Content Removal
Most of the action (98.4%) was taken against copyright infringement resulting in removal of 58,391 pieces of content.
Google explained that the number of removals exceeds the total user complaints since it treats each unique URL in a complaint as an “individual item”.
It further said that a single complaint might contain multiple items or links of the content in question.
Future Reports
A Google spokesperson has said that they will “continue to publish more details as we refine our reporting process for India”.
It has also asked for 2 months in order to publish a more detailed report which would include data on how it removed content.
It said in the report that it would publish data on removals made by automation and of data relating to impersonation and graphic sexual content complaints received post May 25, 2021 in future reports.
Facebook To Also Publish Report
Facebook will also publish an interim report on July 2 with content removal details done between May 15 and June 15.
The main report will be published on July 15 which will also contain details regarding complaints received for Whatsapp.
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