Explore the Charts

The chart shows the distribution of the content actioned on Instagram, by reasons of removal, from the fourth quarter of 2019 until the first quarter of 2022. A metric for a new policy area called violence and incitement was added to the Community Standards in the third quarter of 2021. Additionally, starting with the second quarter of 2021, the child nudity and sexual abuse category was renamed child endagerment and collects data on two separate topics: sexual exploitation and nudity and physical abuse. The data shows that adult nudity and sexual activity remain the main reason of removal of content, followed by bullying and harassment content and violent and graphic one.

The chart shows the number pieces of content actioned under hate speech violations on Instagram over the period October 2019 - March 2022. The data shows a significant increase of hate speech violations that were found and actioned on by Instagram during the monitoring period, with a pick in the second quarter of 2021, when 9.8 million of pieces of content were actioned on. In the first quarter of 2022, the volume of content actioned on is significantly lower (3.4 million of pieces of content).

This chart shows the percentage of content found by Instagram as containing hate speech compared to the content reported by the users, over the period October 2019 - March 2022. Since April 2020, the hate speech detection of Instagram improved significantly compared to the beginning period. However, in the first quarter of 2022, the volume of content found by Instagram declined by 3.8% compared to the same period of the previous year.

This chart shows the percentage of content found by Facebook as containing spam compared to the content reported by the users over the period October 2017 - March 2022. As the results show, almost all of the content containing spam was first found by Facebook (the percentage remains above 99.5% for the whole period).

This chart shows the content actioned under their terrorism and organised hate violations on Facebook, from October 2017 until March 2022. The data shows that the volume of content actioned on under terrorism violations in the first quarter of 2022 almost doubled compared to the same period in the previous year. Content actioned under organised hate violations is more recent (from October 2019). The data shows a slight increase in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, but the volume remain significantly lower than the first quarter of 2021.

This chart shows the percentage of content found by Facebook as containing adult nudity and sexual activity compared to the content reported by the users. As the result shows, the percentage of content actioned that Facebook found and flagged before users reported it is significantly higher that the one reported by users.

This chart shows the percentage of content found by Instagram as containing child nudity and exploitation compared to the content reported by the users, from April 2019 until March 2021. Since the April 2021, the child nudity and sexual exploitation content was renamed child endangerment and includes two separate categories - nudity and physical abuse and sexual exploitations, which are monitored separately. The data shows that the percentage of the content found by Instagram improved constantly over the years, reaching 98% in the third quarter of 2021.

Freedom on the Net measures the level of internet and digital media freedom in 65 countries (for a full display of countries, please view the chart in full screen). Each country receives a numerical score from 100 (the most free) to 0 (the least free), which serves as the basis for an internet freedom status designation of free (70–100 points), partly free (40–69 points) or not free (0–39 points). Ratings are determined through an examination of three broad categories: obstacles to access (assesses infrastructural and economic barriers to access; government efforts to block specific applications or technologies; and legal, regulatory, and ownership control over internet and mobile phone access providers); limits on content (examines filtering and blocking of websites; other forms of censorship and self-censorship; manipulation of content; the diversity of online news media; and usage of digital media for social and political activism); violations of user rights (measures legal protections and restrictions on online activity; surveillance; privacy; and repercussions for online activity, such as legal prosecution, imprisonment, physical attacks, or other forms of harassment).

The chart shows the evolution of the countries' Freedom of the World score for the past 15 years, based on a report from Freedom House. The results show that the global freedom has declined constantly in the last the 14 years. The gap between setbacks and gains widened compared with 2018, as individuals in 64 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties while those in just 37 experienced improvements. The negative pattern affected all regime types, but the impact was most visible near the top and the bottom of the scale.

The chart shows the percentage of posts in Reuters Institute's sample rated as false that were still active and did not have a clear label at the end of March 2020 (Twitter: (N=43; YouTube: N=6; Facebook: N=33) out of the total number of posts on each platform in the sample (Twitter: N= 73; YouTube: N= 22; Facebook: N=137).