Received 94 grievances, actioned 133 URLs in May 26-June 25: Twitter compliance report

Twitter received 94 grievances and actioned 133 URLs between May 26 and June 25 the microblogging platform said in its maiden monthly compliance report as mandated by the IT rulesThe USbased company which has been in the eye of a storm over its failure to comply with the new IT rules in India has also named Vinay Prakash as its resident grievance officer for India to comply with the said rules Twitter in the report titled India Transparency Report User Grievances and Proactive Monitoring July 2021 said it had received 94 grievances via its grievance officerIndia channel between May 26 2021 and June 25 2021 that included content on TwitterThis includes complaints received from individual users with accompanying court ordersThe majority of complaints received in this channel during the reporting period fell into categories including defamation 20 abuseharassment 6 sensitive adult content 4 impersonation and privacy infringement 3 each IPrelated Infringement 1 and misinformationsynthetic and manipulated media 1The total number of URLs actioned in these categories stood at defamation 87 abuseharassment 38 sensitive adult content nil impersonation 1 privacy infringement 6 IPrelated infringement nil and misinformationsynthetic and manipulated media 1 as per the reportIn addition to the above data we processed 56 grievances which were appealing Twitter account suspensions These were all resolved and the appropriate responses were sent Twitter said It added that the platform overturned seven of the account suspensions based on the specifics of the situation but the other accounts remain suspendedIn a separate category Proactive Monitoring Data Twitter said 18385 accounts were suspended over the issue of child sexual exploitation nonconsensual nudity and similar content while 4179 accounts were suspended for promotion of terrorism Twitter however said the Proactive Monitoring Data represents global actions taken and not just actions related to content from IndiaProactive Monitoring refers to content proactively identified by employing internal proprietary tools and industry hash sharing initiatives it addedTwitter said each user complaint received via the India grievance channel is assessed under its terms of service ToS and rules and any content that is determined to be in violation is actioned in line with its range of enforcement options This includes tweet level enforcement like labelling of tweets limiting visibility and removal direct messagelevel enforcement and Accountlevel enforcement includes permanent suspension among other actionsTwitter noted that going forward it will publish this report on a monthly basis and that it will make improvements over time based on feedback received from the government or in accordance with internal changes that allow it to provide more granular data Companies including Google Facebook and Koo have already published their maiden compliance reports as required under the IT rulesAlso ReadTwitter publishes first compliance report under IT rulesFacebook had said it actioned over 30 million content pieces across 10 violation categories during May 15June 15 in the country while Instagram took action against about two million pieces across nine categories during the same period This data was a part of an interim report on July 2 providing information on the number of content Facebook removed proactively during May 15June 15 The final report will be published on July 15 containing details of user complaints received and action takenThe July 15 report will also contain data related to WhatsApp which is part of Facebooks family of apps Google in its report had stated that 27762 complaints were received by Google and YouTube in April this year from individual users in India over alleged violation of local laws or personal rights which resulted in the removal of 59350 pieces of contentKoo in its report had said it proactively moderated 54235 content pieces while 5502 posts were reported by its users during June India is a major market for global digital platforms As per data cited by the government earlier this year India has 53 crore WhatsApp users 41 crore Facebook subscribers and 21 crore Instagram users Koo a homegrown rival to Twitter has over 60 lakh usersUnder the new IT rules large digital platforms with over 50 lakh users are required to publish periodic compliance reports every month mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken thereon The report has to also include the number of specific communication links or parts of information that the intermediary has removed or disabled access to in pursuance of any proactive monitoring conducted by using automated toolsTwitter had courted controversy over the new social media rules and the Indian government had confronted Twitter over deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the IT rules despite repeated reminders Twitter which has an estimated 175 crore users in India lost its legal shield as an intermediary in India becoming liable for users posting any unlawful contentOn July 8 Twitter had informed the Delhi High Court that it has appointed an interim chief compliance officer who is a resident of India and that it will make an endeavour to fill the regular position within eight weeks as per the IT rules The Delhi High Court had granted two weeks to Twitter Inc to file an affidavit notarised in the US on compliance with the IT rules and had made it clear that it was not extending any protection to the microblogging platformThe High Court had said the Centre was free to take action against Twitter Inc in case of any breach of the IT RulesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever