Google Reports 24.5% Increase In Compliance Actions; Removed 500K Content Pieces In Dec 2021

Google India has removed a total of 500K content pieces in December 2021, out of which 405,911 content pieces were removed as a result of automated detection. Google received 31,497 complaints from users and 94,173 content pieces were removed as a result of user complaints.

In December 2021, from the 31,497 complaints, Google reported 30,359 (96.4%) copyright infringement complaints and 258 (0.8%) trademark infringement complaints.

According to Google’s compliance report for the month, the total number of content pieces removed is 24.5% higher than the 401,555 instances of removals in November 2021.

A Look At November 2021 Numbers:

• 401.5K content pieces actioned in November 2021
• 375,468 content pieces were removed as a result of automated detection in November
• Google India received 26,087 complaints from individual users across the country
• It removed 61,114 content pieces
• 98.8% removal actions of the 26,087 pertained to copyrights issues

It is interesting to note that while the complaints received are less than actions taken on the basis of the complaints — over 3X. Google explains the disparity, stating, “A single complaint may specify multiple items that potentially relate to the same or different pieces of content.”

“These complaints relate to third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or personal rights on Google’s SSMI platforms,” the compliance report said.

Nature Of The Complaints

According to the compliance report, the tech giant evaluates content reported under its community guidelines, content policies and legal policies. Based on this review, removal action may be taken for one of the request reasons.

Apart from copyrights infringement, other instances for content removal in December 2021 were related to defamation, circumvention, court orders, graphic sexual content and other legal reason, the report said.

Top social media platforms including Google, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, Twitter and Koo have been publishing monthly compliance reports since it became mandatory in May 2021 under the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules.

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