Meta gets record requests from govt for action on accounts

Meta received 55,497 requests, an all-time high, from the Indian government on user data during the first half of 2022, up from the 50,382 requests that the social media company received during July-december 2021. The requests for the first half of 2022 were for action against around 91,000 users and accounts.

According to Meta, during January-june 2022, requests from governments across the globe for user data were up 10.5 per cent from 214,777 to 237,414. The US continues to submit the largest number of requests (seeking action on more than 1.26 lakh accounts), followed by India, Germany, Brazil, France and the UK.

Meta added that it restricted access in India to 23 items reported by the Election Commission. The restrictions came into force after electoral complaints on issues such as spreading candidate misinformation and promoting sectarian violence were made under the Indian Penal Code, Representation of the People Act.

Of these, 19 items were restricted only temporarily (during the designated blackout period).

“We also restricted access to 597 items in response to directions from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) for violations under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, including content against security of the state and public order. We also restricted access to six items in response to directions from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for violating Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021,” said Meta in its Integrity and Transparency Report, Q3 2022.

Meta also restricted access to 71 items due to other court orders, 13 items for IP infringement, and two items in response to private reports of defamation. As part of the compliance under the new IT Rules, 2021, for the month of September, Meta said for Facebook it received 587 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism, and that it responded to 100 per cent of these.