Google removes over 61K pieces of bad content in India in Nov

New Delhi, Dec 31:  Google removed 61,114 pieces of content based on user complaints in the month of November, the company said in its monthly report in compliance with the new India IT Rules 2021.

The tech giant received 26,087 complaints from users in India in November. These complaints were related to third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or personal rights on Google platforms.

The content was removed under various categories like Copyright: 25,013, Other Legal: 554, Trademark: 232, Defamation: 187, Counterfeit: 43, Court Order: 29 andA Graphic Sexual Content: 15, among others.

Google said that it also removed 375,468 pieces of content as part of automated detection in the period.

"In addition to reports from our users, we invest heavily in fighting harmful content online and use technology to detect and remove it from our platforms," Google said in its monthly compliance report.

"This includes using automated detection processes for some of our products to prevent the dissemination of harmful content such as child sexual abuse material and violent extremist content," it added.

In accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 ("IT Rules"), Google, along with other social media platforms, is mandated to publish monthly transparency reports with details of complaints received from users in India and the actions taken, as well as removal actions taken as a result of automated detection.

Under the new IT rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms -- with more than 5 million users --- have to publish monthly compliance reports.

"We evaluate content reported to us under our Community Guidelines, content policies and/or legal policies," said Google.