X India suspends over 18 lakh accounts in June-July, here’s why

X has suspended over 18 lakh accounts in India between June 26 and July 25, mainly for promoting child sexual exploitation and similar content, the company said in its monthly report. As per IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook that have more than 5 million users have to publish monthly compliance reports.

The microblogging platform also said that it took down 2,865 accounts for promoting terrorism in the country. This means that in total, X suspended 18,53,887 accounts in India.
How Twitter decides on account suspension

X said that it uses technology and tools to check and suspend accounts.
“A vast majority of all accounts that are suspended for the promotion of terrorism and child sexual exploitation are proactively flagged by a combination of technology and other purpose-built internal proprietary tools,” it said.

What were the complaints about
In its monthly report, the company noted that it received a total of 2,056 complaints from users in India, and it acted on 3,712 URLs on the platform. In addition, X processed 49 grievances which were appealing account suspensions between June 26 and July 25.

“We overturned 1 of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation. The remaining reported accounts remain suspended,” X noted, adding, “We received 14 requests related to general questions about Twitter accounts during this reporting period.”
According to Twitter, most complaints received were about abuse/harassment (1,783), followed by hateful conduct (54), privacy infringement (48), child sexual exploitation (46) and impersonation (42). It is important to note here that the complaints received are not the same as account suspension.
Recently, X CEO claimed that hate speech has gone down. She slammed a report which claimed that harmful content viewed on Twitter is on the rise. She said that more than 99% of content users and advertisers see on Twitter is healthy.
“Which means only a small amount of content requires enforcement. But no matter the amount, we will keep doing whatever it takes to make this platform as safe and healthy as possible,” she said.
“Each step of the way, Twitter has been more transparent about this work than other platforms, and groups outside of Twitter have validated our impact,” Yaccarino added.