Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Union Minister, said earlier today that the removal of offensive posts by the social media giants like Google, Facebook and Instagram after the new IT rules by the government came into effect was a big step towards transparency.
Between May 15 and June 15, Facebook and Instagram acted against 30 million posts and 2 million posts respectively, as cited by the Facebook’s first compliance report. Whereas Search engine, Google, removed 59350 links from its products including YouTube’s.
Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted that it was nice to see significant social media platforms like Google, Facebook and Instagram following the new IT rules, as the first compliance report on voluntary removal of offensive posts published by them was a big step towards transparency.
The comments from Ravi Shankar Prasad came as the troubles with Twitter grew when they appointed Jeremy Kessel, Global Legal Policy Director, as the grievance offer for India to follow the new rules.
Ravi Shankar Prasad’s tweet, he did not mention Twitter.
Nice to see significant social media platforms like Google, Facebook and Instagram following the new IT Rules. First compliance report on voluntary removal of offensive posts published by them as per IT Rules is a big step towards transparency. pic.twitter.com/FhzUv4pHUp
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) July 3, 2021
After the new IT rules came into effect, four cases had been filed against Twitter, two in Uttar Pradesh, One in Delhi and One in Madhya Pradesh over user generated content.
Concerns have been raised that Twitter might no longer be able to enjoy protection against user-generated content.
India has one if the highest number of Internet users at over 624 million users and over 448 million social media users.