ShareChat pulls down over 4 lakh posts for 'violating community guidelines'

Regional language social platform ShareChat on Wednesday announced that it has removed 487,000 posts for violating the community guidelines as well as terms of use.

In March, Bengaluru-based ShareChat along with other social media platforms had signed and adopted a ‘Voluntary Code of Ethics’ to support the Election Commission of India (ECI) for a free and fair election process. The posts were taken down with regards to this.

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Berges Y Malu, Head of Policy of ShareChat, said,

“We work constantly to be the social media platform of choice for millions of Indians who would like to share and view content in their preferred language. And therefore, we are focused towards ensuring that our platform is not misused by bad actors. We have invested resources to ensure our AI tools as well human reviewers are well trained in order to effectively detect and stall harmful behaviour on our platform."

The platform, which has 45 million users and 14 language options, said that it has been removing these posts since February 2019. According to the press statement, over 6,431 pieces of these were taken down by a third-party fact checking agency NewsChecker.in

Newschecker.in is an independent fact-checking initiative specifically formed to create a sandbox for independence and is a subsidiary of ArtE Mediatech.

Apart from the posts, 54,404 accounts were also been removed that were indulging in the sharing of harmful or abusive content, engaging in disruptive behaviour and for using the platform in a way that was violative of the terms of use.

ShareChat was founded by IIT-Kanpur alumni Ankush Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan, and Bhanu Singh in 2015. The company is claimed to be valued at nearly $500 million. It currently offers its services in the following languages - Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Odia, Kannada, Assamese, Haryanvi, Rajasthani and Bhojpuri.

Last year, ShareChat had raised Rs 720 crore ($100 million) in a funding round led by existing investor Shunwei Capital. 

Also read: Regional content connects millions across India, says Ankush Sachdev, Co-founder, ShareChat