Interestingly, this is higher than the second half of 2021, when India had made 50,382 requests to Meta for user data.
In its transparency report published on Wednesday, Meta said it restricted access in India to 597 items in response to directions from the IT Ministry in the reporting period. These items were restricted for violating Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, including content against security of the state and public order.
Meta also said it restricted six items in response to directions from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting for violating Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines & Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
“We restricted access in India to 23 items reported by the Election Commission of India relating to electoral complaints under the Indian Penal Code, Representation of the People Act, including spreading candidate misinformation and promoting sectarian violence,” Meta said in its transparency report.
Of these, 19 items were restricted only temporarily (during the designated blackout period) in the country.
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“We also restricted access to 71 items due to other court orders, to 13 items for IP infringement, and to two items in response to private reports of defamation,” said the company.
With the Centre coming out with the new IT Rules, 2021 to hold social media platforms more accountable, Meta said it took down over 30.7 million pieces of bad content across 13 policies for Facebook and over 3 million pieces of such content across 12 policies for Instagram in India in September.
The US continues to submit the largest number of requests with 69,363 requests.
When it came to Internet disruptions, India saw the highest number of Internet disruptions totaling 18 in all. Sudan came second with 15 Internet disruptions.
