Meta Cracks The Whip On Spam & Nudity, Actions 33.78 Mn Content Pieces In Sep

In what appears to be one of its biggest crackdowns, social media giant Meta took action against 33.78 Mn content pieces across Facebook and Instagram platforms in September 2022.

The disclosure was part of the monthly compliance report published by the social media giant. 

Over 30.7 Mn pieces of content were actioned on Facebook during the month. Of these, more than 75% i.e. 23.3 Mn content pieces were taken down for being Spam. This was followed by adult nudity and sexual activity (2.9 Mn), violent and graphic content (2.7 Mn), child endangerment and sexual exploitation (433.9K), and suicide and self-injury (307).

The proactive action rate on Facebook ranged between 48.1% to 99.7%. The proactive action rate refers to the percentage of content flagged by the company before being reported by users.

Besides, Facebook also received 587 reports from users through various local grievance redressal mechanisms in September. 

The social media platform claims to have provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 534 cases. Most of these complaints were tagged under ‘account hacked issues’ and ‘other issues. Of the remaining, action was taken on 21 reports, while the rest 32 grievances were reviewed but not acted upon. 

On similar lines, Meta actioned more than 3.08 Mn content pieces on its video-sharing platform Instagram. A major chunk of those pertained to suicide and self-injury (921.6K), followed closely by violent and graphic content (921.6K), adult nudity and sexual content (723.5K) and bullying and harassment (275.7K). 

The proactive action rate on Instagram hovered between 68.1% and 99.6%.

During the abovementioned period, Instagram logged in 1,115 complaints through its Indian grievance mechanism. Most complaints pertained to identity theft issues (518), account hacked issues (332), among others.

Instagram provided resolution tools for users in 987 cases, including channels to report content and ways to address certain issues.  

September saw a steep rise in enforcement as the number of actioned pieces rose 42% month-on-month. In August, Meta took down 23.78 Mn content pieces on Facebook and Instagram platforms for flouting various community guidelines.

September brought bad tidings for Meta as the tech major was surrounded by controversies on multiple fronts. The company reported its Q3 financial results this month, which sent the tech stock in a tizzy. The tech giant reported a revenue of $27.Bn for the quarter, down 4% from $29 Bn a year earlier. Profits also halved YoY to $4.4 Bn amid weak performance on back of a faltering metaverse division. 

The month has turned out to be one of the worst weeks for Meta as stocks have tumbled to record lows, wiping off billions of dollars in investor wealth. In the past one week, Meta’s market valuation plunged by more than $80 Bn as market rout led to a selloff. 

The only silver lining appeared to be India operations as Meta’s gross ad revenues in the country soared 74% YoY to INR 16,189 r in financial year 2021-22 (FY22), up from INR 9,326 Cr in FY21. 

Back home, a two-hour-long WhatsApp outage grabbed headlines. The aftermath saw the social media platform submit a report on the matter to the government, blaming a tech glitch for the disruption. 

The month also saw the Apex Court greenlighting the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI’s) probe into WhatsApp’s contentious 2021 privacy policy update. It also emerged this month that Meta reportedly privately told human rights groups that security concerns prevented the company from disclosing the full contents of its India’s hate speech investigation.

Meanwhile, in its latest compliance report for the period between August 26, 2022 and September 25, 2022, Twitter said that it banned 54,123 accounts for promoting content related to child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity promoting terrorism and other similar content. 

It is worth noting that social media platforms with more than 5 Mn users are mandated under the new IT Rules, 2021 to publish monthly compliance reports.