ShareChat Received 5 Mn User Complaints in April, 2.9 Mn Content Pieces Taken Down

Homegrown social media platform ShareChat received more than 5 Mn user complaints (50,11,076) during April this year. The complaints were filed against individual accounts and content pieces for allegedly flouting community guidelines. 

A bulk of the user complaints related to ‘Abusive Language’ (24.07%), followed by complaints clubbed under the unspecified ‘Others’ (27.86%), ‘No category’ (10.23%), sexually explicit content (8.85%), among others, ShareChat said in its monthly compliance report.

The Indian platform also received 8 legal notices from law enforcement agencies in the month of April. It provided data to authorities in 7 of these cases, while takedown action was taken on one request for violation of community guidelines.

ShareChat also took action against 2.9 Mn pieces of content (29,44,078) in April 2022. These included 2.64 Mn pieces of user-generated content and 1.36 Lakh pieces of sexual content. Additionally, 35,434 pieces of content were also removed for copyright infringement. More than 1.22 Lakh comments and 723 chat rooms were also deleted on the platform in April 2022. 

ShareChat also imposed bans on users across three broad categories – User Generated Content (UGC) ban, edit profile ban and comment ban. The duration of the ban ranged from a single day to nearly a year (permanent ban). The platform imposed a ‘permanent’ UGC ban on 10,344 user accounts, while permanent ‘Edit Profile ban’ was imposed on 10,225 accounts. ‘Comment ban’ was imposed on 10,272 accounts.

It also terminated 10,930 user accounts permanently during the month.

In its previous compliance report, ShareChat said it received more than 7 Mn user complaints in March this year. 

Meanwhile, instant messaging platform WhatsApp also released its latest compliance report on Wednesday (June 1) which said that more than 1.66 Mn accounts were banned in India in April. Facebook and Instagram together actioned 20.95 Mn pieces of content in April this year.

Twitter received 1,480 complaints in India between March 26, 2022 and April 25, 2022, and took action against 1,494 URLs in April. Google India received 23,322 complaints in April and took down 50,000 pieces of content for allegedly violating community guidelines and copyright infringement.

Under the new IT Rules 2021, social media platforms with more than 5 Mn users have to mandatorily publish monthly compliance reports.