IT Rules: Google publishes transparency report, weeds out 11.6 lakh harmful content

On Friday (July 30), Google said that the firm has removed over 11.6 lakh pieces of harmful online content in May and June in India. The steps were taken in accordance with the new IT Rules, 2021.

In the month of May, Google removed 634,357 pieces of harmful content while the tech giant removed close to 526,866 pieces in the month of June. The tech giant used its automated detection processes to find and take down the content. 

In a statement, Google said that these figures show the number of removal actions taken on content from users in India across our SSMI platforms as a result of automated detection processes during the one-month reporting period. 

Google uses its automated systems to detect and weed out harmful online content. The company said that volume of automated detection is close to 10x that of user complaints, demonstrating the effectiveness of our automated systems. 

Google is said to be investing heavily in the fight against harmful content online. The recently published Google’s transparency report contains further breakdown categories in terms of the type of user complaints received, such as impersonation, graphic sexual content, and others.

Besides Google, several other internet intermediaries or platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter also submit their monthly transparency reports in accordance with the new IT rules. 

- With inputs from IANS.