In June, Koo took down over 1,900 pieces of content via proactive monitoring

Twitter-like social media app Koo became the first Indian social media company to publish a compliance report as required under the new social media rules. 

In the report published on Thursday, the company said that in the month of June it took down more than 1,200 pieces of content from its platform after they were reported by users and more than 1,900 pieces of content were taken down via proactive monitoring using automated tools. 

India’s new social media rules, which came into effect from May 26, mandate significant social media intermediaries like YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and Koo to publish a compliance report every month mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken.  

Under the rules, the intermediaries also have to reveal the number of specific communication links or parts of information that they removed following proactive monitoring using automated tools. 

On Wednesday, Google became the first to publish a compliance report under the social media rules. However, as Entrackr pointed out, the company did not reveal the amount of content it took down through proactive monitoring using automated tools. 

However, unlike Google, Koo did not specify the types of content that were flagged and removed. 

In response to our queries, Koo's co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna said, "details required in accordance with Rule 4(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 of the Government of India has been published publicly".

Koo’s compliance report shows that in June 2021, a total of 5,502 koos (Koo lingo for tweets) were reported by its users and of that, the company took down 22.7 percent, or 1,253 koos. 

“Other action” was taken on 4,249 pieces of content, the company said. Koo defines “other action” as overlay, blur, ignore and warn about koos that do not comply with the government’s guidelines.

Similarly, Koo said it took steps to proactively moderate 54,235 koos, of which 2.2 percent, or 1,996, were removed while other action was taken against 52,239 koos.

In a statement, Koo said that going forward it will publish a compliance report on the first day of each month and, where appropriate, will include additional insights.

Facebook and WhatsApp had earlier said that they will release an interim compliance report on July 2 and a full report on July 15. We have reached out to Twitter to understand when they will publish their compliance report.