According to a statement by Meta, the prevalence of hate speech on Facebook decreased from 0.05% in the second quarter to 0.03% or three views of hate speech per 10,000 views of content in the September quarter.
The social network removed 13.6 million pieces of content on Facebook for violating its violence and incitement policy, while it removed 3.3 million pieces of hateful content with a proactive detection rate of 96.4% from Instagram, Meta said.
"We removed 9.2 million pieces of bullying and harassment content on Facebook, with a proactive rate of 59.4%. We removed 7.8 million pieces of bullying and harassment content on Instagram with a proactive rate of 83.2%", Meta said.
Contrary to Meta's claims, their leaked internal documents reviewed by the media organisation NDTV has sparked outrage on social media as it revealed that Facebook's senior officials downplayed the threat from such inflammatory content and hate speech in India.
The recent claims by Meta on decreasing hate speech, online trolling, and fake news on social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have left Indian politicians and ordinary netizens divided in their opinions.
Congress Party politician Digvijay Singh on Saturday lauded Facebook for waking up to the hate campaign allegedly propagated by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindu Nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
On Friday, Congress Party social media head Rohan Gupta, wrote a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and also held a joint press conference with politician Praveen Chakravarty in Delhi and said that in the last two years, evidence has been released that shows negligence by the company in controlling hate speech.
Chakravarty said that all this "marked a rise in violence against the Muslim minority in India over the last 18 months".
Gupta, in his letter to Zuckerberg, urged the Meta chief executive to conduct an independent inquiry into the functioning of Facebook India and to probe charges of hate speech and fake news being spread through the platforms.
"It is your responsibility as the head of this organisation to hold those responsible for betraying our people accountable for their actions", he stated in the letter.
Another Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi wrote a letter to Facebook India head Ajit Mohan and expressed his "vehement disdain and alarm" over the company's partisan policies towards the removal of hate speech and inauthentic accounts.
He referred to "the recent revelations made by former employees of Facebook [Frances Haugen]" regarding internal policies and action taken relating to the moderation of content.
Several others slammed Facebook's claims and accused the company of turning a blind eye to hate speech against Muslims and fake news in India.
Last month, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told US lawmakers that social media fuels division, harms children, and urgently needs to be regulated. Haugen testified after leaking internal research documents to authorities and The Wall Street Journal.