Twitter Bans Over 46K Accounts For Violating Guidelines

Microblogging platform Twitter received 1,589 complaints in India via its local grievance mechanism between April 26, 2022 and May 25, 2022, while it banned over 46,000 accounts for violating its guidelines.

It also took action against 1,621 uniform resource locators (URLs) during the said period, the platform said in its monthly compliance report.

More than 1,366 complaints pertained to online harassment, while 111 grievances were logged for hateful conduct on the platform. Other complaints related to policy areas such as misinformation and manipulated media (36), sensitive adult content (28), impersonation (25), among others.

On the other hand, the social media platform also took down 1,077 URLs for violating norms related to online harassment.  362 web links were screened for hateful conduct, while 154 URLs were taken down for sensitive adult content.

Action was also taken on URLs that violated community guidelines related to manipulated media (17), impersonation (8) and copyright infringement (1).

In addition, the platform also processed 115 grievances that appealed account suspensions. No account suspension was revoked, Twitter said. Two other requests were also received for ‘general questions’ about Twitter handles during the reporting period. 

The platform also cracked the whip on accounts promoting content related to child sexual exploitation and terrorism. 43,656 handles were banned for tweeting content related to child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity, while 2,870 accounts were suspended for promoting terrorism.

As per its previous compliance report, Twitter had received 1,480 complaints in India, and took action against 1,494 URLs during the reporting period.

Meanwhile, Meta said that it actioned 21.6 Mn content pieces on its Facebook and Instagram platforms in May this year. Whatsapp also banned more than 1.9 Mn Indian accounts during its monthly sweep in May 2022. 

In accordance with the new IT Rules, 2021, all social media platforms with more than 5 Mn users are mandated to publish monthly transparency reports.