Mark Zuckerberg-backed Facebook took action against only 27% of complaints in May: Report 

Social media giant Meta, founded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, took action against only around 27 per cent of complaints it received from Facebook users, while for Instagram, action was taken for less than half of the total grievances raised by users in May 2023, according to the company's latest India Monthly Report.

Meta's Facebook took action against only around 27 per cent of complaints it received from users and Instagram against less than half of total grievances raised by users in May 2023, according to the company's latest India Monthly Report. 

The development comes a couple of days after another social media giant, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read, to discourage "extreme levels" of data scraping and system manipulation.

Individual grievances on Facebook more than doubled to 16,995 and jumped over 68 per cent on Instagram in May compared to April data.

Facebook acted on less than one-tenth of grievances

As per the category-wise information disclosed by Facebook "actioned on" less than one-tenth of grievances of users where they claimed that the content is showing them in partial nudity or a sexual act.

In the case of Instagram, the platform acted on half of the total users' reports it received for violation of its policy on "content showing me in nudity/partial nudity or a sexual act".

Meta transparency report shows the other categories of the report, on which Facebook's action rate was less than a quarter of the percentage, including grievances raised by users for "bullying or harassment" (less than 7 per cent), "inappropriate or abusive content" (about 8 per cent) and fake profiles (about 48 per cent).

Facebook received a total of 16,995 grievances from users and provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 2,325 cases.

"Of the other 14,670 reports where the specialised review was needed, we reviewed content as per our policies, and we took action on 2,299 reports in total," Meta said in its report for Facebook.

Facebook took action against 41 per cent of complaints it received from users in April 2023, while Instagram took action against over 54 per cent of grievances according to the Report.

Facebook received a total of 8,470 grievances from users and provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 2,225 cases.

The category-wise details of action taken on 2,299 additional reports were not disclosed by Facebook.

Instagram took action against 40% of complaints 

Instagram received 16,267 grievances from users, out of which it acted on 6,499 incidents comprising 2,671 reports on which action was taken after specialised review.

Instagram provided tools only in around 5 per cent of cases where users reported their account being hacked, and around 50 per cent in cases where users claimed that the content showed them in partial nudity or a sexual act. The category or the policy-wise details of 2,671 reports were not shared by the company in the report.

Action on GAC orders 

Meta received two orders from the Grievances Appellate Committee (GAC) on which it acted. The GAC looks into complaints of users who are not satisfied with the resolution of social media majors.

The Union Ministry of Electronics and IT launched the GAC to empower social media users in India. It takes up concerns regarding content and other social media-related issues. 

“The move is to make sure that the internet remains open and safe for users in the country. These are early days for the committee and it will keep evolving as days progress," said Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar at the launch of GAC.

Zuckerberg launched a new subscription service on Facebook and Instagram in February that allowed users to have verified account badges for a minimum monthly fee of $11.99 on the web and $14.99 on iOS. It allows users to verify their accounts with a government ID and receive a blue badge, which gives extra protection against fake accounts and impersonation.

"This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services," Zuckerberg said in a statement written on Facebook and Instagram.