Google removed 94,173 pieces of content based on user complaints in December 2021, nearly 24 per cent increase from November (61,114), the company said in its monthly report in compliance with the new India IT Rules 2021. The tech giant received 31,497 complaints from users in India in December. These complaints were related to third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or personal rights on various Google platforms.
The 94,173 pieces of content were removed under various categories like Copyright: 93,693, Trademark: 438, Court Order: 37, Graphic Sexual Content, Circumvention and others. Google said that it also removed 405,911 pieces of content as part of automated detection in the said period. In total, the company took down over 500,000 pieces of content in December.
"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," Google 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.