Based on four user grievances, Twitter took action against 404 URLs for illegal activities such as doxxing (revealing someone’s personal details online), money laundering, hacking, etc, according to the platform’s compliance report between November 26 and December 25, 2021. These grievances may or may not be accompanied by court orders and could likely have multiple text, photos, or videos listed for action or user information, the report added.
The report does not include government requests for information. Under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, significant social media intermediaries like Twitter have to publish periodic compliance reports with details like number of user grievances, amount of content actioned, and proactively-detected content.
Twitter had earlier been in a tussle with the Indian government for not complying with the IT Rules, which had led to the social media platform facing several court cases and reportedly losing its intermediary status in India. These reports indicate the platform’s compliance efforts since that time.
Majority of user grievances to do with verification, account access
Based on nine user grievances, Twitter said that it took action against 60 URLs for posting sensitive adult content. Furthermore, it received 35 grievances on issues related to harassment and abuse, following which 37 URLs were actioned.
The majority of user grievances that Twitter received were related to account verification, account access, seeking assistance or information regarding an account, or Twitter’s enforcement actions, details of which are not included in the table provided by the report.
According to Twitter, user grievances are reviewed in accordance with its Terms of Service and Twitter rules. Here’s a breakdown of all grievances received.
Source: Twitter Compliance Report
After receiving 81 appeals to overturn the suspension of accounts, Twitter restored nine of them. An additional 19 requests for information about its services were received, the report said.
Over 37,000 accounts suspended for posting nudity-related content
Twitter suspended 37,310 accounts worldwide for sharing or posting content related to child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and similar content. According to the report, Twitter detects such content through a combination of technology, ‘internal proprietary tools’ and industry hash-sharing initiatives (databases of problematic content removed by other platforms).
2,880 accounts were suspended for sharing terrorism-related content as well.
Between October and November last year, Twitter had suspended 35,583 accounts for nudity and child sexual exploitation-related content and 3,820 accounts for promoting terrorism.
What are some of the compliance requirements under the IT Rules?
Under the IT Rules, intermediaries with more than 5 million users have to:
- Publish periodic compliance report monthly
- Appoint a chief compliance officer, nodal contact person, and resident grievance officer, all of whom must be Indian residents and employees of the platform.
- All intermediaries, irrespective of user base, have to comply with law enforcements’ requests for information in relation to an investigation within 72 hours and preserve such records for 180 days after receiving such a request.
Also Read:
- WhatsApp banned 2 million accounts linked to Indian numbers in December 2021
- Twitter took action against 354 URLs between October and November: Report
- Summary: What are the new Santa Clara Principles on transparency from social media platforms?
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