X Corp bans over 5L accounts for policy violations in India

NEW DELHI: Elon Musk-run X Corp (formerly Twitter) banned a record 5,57,764 accounts in India between August 26 and September 25, mostly for promoting child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity.

The micro-blogging platform, going through a churning under Musk who has recently appointed a new X CEO Linda Yaccarino, also took down 1,675 accounts for promoting terrorism on its platform in the country.

In total, X banned 5,59,439 accounts in the reporting period in India. X, in its monthly report in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021, said that it received 3,076 complaints from users in India in the same time frame through its grievance redressal mechanisms.

In addition, X processed 116 grievances which were appealing account suspensions.

“We overturned 10 of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation. The remaining reported accounts remain suspended,” said the company.

“We received 13 requests related to general questions about Twitter accounts during this reporting period,” it added. Most complaints from India were about abuse/harassment (1,076), followed by hateful conduct (1,063), child sexual exploitation (450), and sensitive adult content (332).

Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.

Between July 26 and August 25, X banned 12,80,107 accounts in India.

The micro-blogging platform also took down 2,307 accounts for promoting terrorism on its platform in the country. In addition, between June 26 and July 25, the company banned 1,851,022 accounts and took down 2,865 accounts for promoting terrorism on its platform in the country.

Meanwhile, under Musk, X recently approved a staggering 83 per cent of government requests to either restrict or block content globally, including in India and Turkey.