Meta regulates hate speech less in India than globally
On Facebook and Instagram, Meta’s proactive enforcement on posts related to hate speech, bullying, harassment, has drastically decreased in India since June 2025
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has been found to regulate hate speech less in India compared to its global enforcement. In October to December 2025, only around 30% of posts promoting hate speech on Instagram and 32.95% on Facebook were proactively regulated by Meta in India, according to its Transparency Reports and Community Standards Enforcement Report.
This is significantly lower than the 83.9% proactive action on Instagram and 74% on Facebook for hateful conduct globally. This disparity is also observed in content related to bullying, harassment, violence, and incitement. India, being Meta's largest user base, shows a concerning trend of Meta's enforcement gaps in these areas.
The 'proactive rate', which measures the percentage of content or accounts acting on before user reports, is a key metric disclosed in these reports. A rate of 30% for hate speech, for instance, indicates that only 30% of flagged hate speech posts were addressed by Meta before user intervention. The graphic illustrating these rates across different categories of harmful content reveals that hate speech, bullying, harassment, and violence are the least proactively addressed in India.
This suggests Meta's reactive approach, relying heavily on user flagging instead of automated scanning and removal. The time between user flagging and Meta's action on harmful content is undisclosed, which could prolong the presence of detrimental posts. The situation has worsened since July 2025, with a significant drop in proactive rates for hate speech and bullying/ harassment by over 30% in India between June and July 2025.
Despite Meta revising its policies on 'hateful conduct' and 'bullying and harassment' in January last year, the proactive rates have plummeted to 22.3% and 32.5% on Instagram for hate speech and bullying, respectively, as of June 2026. These findings are six months after Meta's policy revisions and highlight the need for a more proactive approach in regulating harmful content in India.
Written by urgent.news from The Hindu - Sci-Tech's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
