Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) has been rigorously cracking down on harmful content on Facebook and Instagram for more than a decade. In April 2024, the company’s efforts resulted in removing over 17.2 million pieces of bad content from both of its social media platforms operating in India. Of these, 11.7 million pieces were removed from Facebook, while more than 5.5 million were taken down from Instagram.
Meta’s monthly report, released under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, covers the period from April 1 to April 30, 2024. The report details Meta’s enforcement actions on content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) that violate its community standards and provides insights into its proactive detection efforts.
Interestingly, Meta employs two key metrics to quantify their content removal efforts: Content Actioned and Proactive Rate.
The “Content Actioned” measures the number of pieces of content Meta takes action on for violating standards. Actions include removing content or flagging it with warnings if deemed disturbing. While the “Proactive Rate” indicates the percentage of content or accounts flagged by Meta before users report them.
Meta Removed Harmful Content: Major Categories
- SPAM: Spam accounted for the largest portion of content removals, with 6.8 million pieces removed from Facebook India in April, representing 39.6% of the total takedowns.
- Suicide and Self-Injury: Meta removed 3.4 million pieces of content related to suicide and self-injury – 1.7 million each from Facebook and Instagram. Impressively, 99.9% of this content was proactively detected and flagged before any user reports.
- Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity: Approximately 1.7 million pieces of content were removed from Facebook, and 1.2 million from Instagram, for containing adult nudity and sexual activity in April 2024.
- Violent and Graphic Content: Meta actioned approximately 567.8 thousand related pieces of content on Facebook and 805.7 thousand on Instagram. The proactive detection rate for this category was 99.5%.
Even though Meta’s machine learning algorithms excelled in detecting most violations, they were less effective in identifying hate speech. The proactive rate for bullying and harassment content was 96.1% on Facebook and 92.1% on Instagram, indicating room for improvement.
User Reports Highlighted: Fake Profiles and Abuse
Meta’s efforts to combat misinformation and bad content on its Family of Apps (FoA) extended to addressing user grievances through an established mechanism in India.
Between April 1 and April 30, Meta received and responded to 17,124 reports via Facebook’s grievance mechanism, resolving 9,977 issues with the provided tools. The top grievances included inappropriate or abusive content (8,714 reports), bullying or harassment (3,812 reports), fake profiles (2,259 reports), and hacked accounts (522 reports).
On the other hand, Instagram received and responded to 12,924 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism, resolving 5,941 cases with the provided tools.
The top user complaint on Instagram was about fake profiles (3,861 reports). This was followed by inappropriate or abusive content (3,771 reports) and bullying or harassment (2,493 reports). These data provide valuable insights into user experiences and help Meta prioritize their content moderation efforts.
Given that India is the largest market for Facebook and Instagram, with over 378 million users, it’s no surprise that issues like spam content and fake accounts are rising. To make their social media platforms safer and more enjoyable for Indian users, Meta needs to double down on their efforts to combat harmful content in India.
How often do you come across spam content or fake accounts on Facebook or Instagram in a month? Share your experiences in the comment section!
